CAMROSE, Alta. (Staff) – Alberta hog producers will have a chance to vote on an updated marketing plan this week.
The Agricultural Products Marketing Council has mailed forms to about 4,000 Alberta hog farmers asking them to vote in a mail-in ballot.
The council has said it needs 15 percent of the producers representing 25 percent of production to vote to be able to continue with the marketing plan.
“We want to make sure there’s a significant number of producers voting, yet we don’t want to make it unreasonable,” said Brian Rhiness, general manager of the council.
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The voting may make only minor changes, but there could be major implications if not enough producers vote. If enough voters don’t turn out, a clause will come into place and the province’s hog marketing agency will be eliminated at the end of the year.
One and only chance
“If the vote does not succeed we won’t have time to put out another proposal. I don’t see us having a second chance,” said Paul Allers, a director of the Alberta Pork Producers Development Corporation, the province’s monopoly hog seller.
The hog marketing agency is just one of the provincial agencies looking at its regulations. The Alberta government has asked each department to take a closer look at regulations governing all industry.
Allers said the regulation exercise gave them a chance to update their regulations. The present marketing plan was implemented 28 years ago.
When the original plan was implemented there were six hog slaughtering plants. Now there are two in the province.
One of the biggest regulatory changes proposed prohibits the agency from owning packing plants.
“It was very clear to us that we had to get away from that clause,” said Allers.
The marketing agency sold its share of Fletcher’s Fine Foods in Red Deer, Alta. last summer.
The products marketing council expects to announce the voting results by mid-April.
