All of Canada’s chickens are back inside the national coop.
British Columbia and Alberta have signed the Federal Provincial Agreement for Chicken, rejoining a national system they had left because of squabbles over market share.
The agreement allows provinces more flexibility in setting chicken quotas.
“We’re happy to have a system that can accommodate our needs,” said Jim Beattie, general manager of the British Columbia chicken marketing board.
“We’re glad to be back in and looking to the future.”
Federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief said he was happy to see all 10 provinces brought into a rejuvenated program.
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“It is a good sign that all the provinces and territories are back in the agreement,” he said.
“It sets domestic policy to the realities of the marketplace.”
The Chicken Farmers of Canada, an umbrella group of provincial chicken producer groups, administers the national chicken allocation program.
The new agreement sees the allocation system keep provincially defined production and consumption levels and allows greater flexibility for some provinces to increase their share.
Regions are allowed to increase production by up to five percent per year. Individual provinces can expand production by up to eight percent per year, depending on the rest of the region.
This new agreement mends the huge hole that was created when Alberta and B.C. left the former system. Those provinces produce 25 percent of Canada’s chickens.
Many producers there felt constricted by the former system. Beattie said B.C. producers were unhappy about not being allowed to increase their production to meet the growing demand for chicken from their province’s growing population.
He said there was widespread support for the early 1990s pullout, including from the provincial government. The industry has since expanded, but it has also been rent by disputes between chicken producers and processors. But the board has recently been reorganized and the industry is looking forward to working in a new national system that will allow producers and processors to better react to changes in provincial consumption.
Vanclief said he thinks the two westernmost provinces support the new system.
“I do know that since they signed it, they expect to be getting benefits from it.”
David Fuller, chair of the Chicken Farmers of Canada, celebrated the new agreement’s birth.
“We needed a stronger, more solid foundation to build on, and now we have it,” he said when it was announced.
Vanclief said the agreement also underlines Canada’s commitment to supply management.
“We will continue to support our supply managed industries, including chicken, by working within the (World Trade Organization) negotiations to maintain Canada’s domestic marketing systems.”
