When directors of the Chicken Farmers of Canada meet this week in Ottawa, they will hear a blunt message from Quebec.
The attempt to change the national chicken quota and pricing system, launched in 1995, has been a failure, Quebec industry leaders are expected to tell the national group in a closed-door session.
Fix it or Quebec will opt out of the production allocation system and withhold about $900,000 in annual levies it pays to keep Chicken Farmers of Canada operating.
“We are saying to the other provinces that the agreement we had in 1995, which was supposed to improve the situation, is not working,” Serge Deschamps, general manager of the Quebec chicken marketing board, said in
Read Also
Research looks to control flea beetles with RNAi
A Vancouver agri-tech company wants to give canola growers another weapon in the never-ending battle against flea beetles.
a March 18 interview from Montreal. “The bottom line is we don’t think it is true supply management any more.”
Quebec has given the organization notice that without changes, it will withhold levies beginning April 1. As the country’s second largest chicken producing province, Quebec contributes approximately 30 percent of the CFC budget.
Other leaders of the Canadian chicken industry have said they want to withhold detailed comment about Quebec’s complaints until they hear the full argument March 26.
CFC officials have been checking on the legality of a provincial member withholding levies.
Deschamps said Quebec’s complaints about the new system are shared by some other pro-vinces, although no one else has threatened to withhold money. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia did not sign the 1995 agreement.
Quebec’s main complaint is that under the new plan, each province determines its production quota based on negotiations with the processors. Some expansion is allowed each year.
Lack of national control over production has led to overproduction, he said.
“We find out after the fact that volumes requested by processors were too high when taken together. The surplus goes into storage and then they turn around and say, ‘well guys, because of the amount in storage, we can’t pay you the minimum price you are entitled to’. “
Complaints about falling chicken prices are being heard across the country.
This month the British Columbia Chicken Growers’ Association is asking farmers to contact its Abbotsford office with an opinion on whether the new system is helping or hurting. It vows to press for change if most farmers want it.
