An eight-year dispute over national quota allocation has ended with a unanimous resolution by the Egg Farmers of Canada to give Saskatchewan a bigger share.
In exchange, Saskatchewan will drop all legal action it has taken in a bid to increase its quota.
The province will receive 4.76 percent of all allocations, up from the current 2.2 percent.
“It is a win,” said Bert Harman, chair of the Saskatchewan Egg Producers. “We will now be receiving our original share of the national allocation.”
That percentage was set in the early 1970s.
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The dispute began in 2000 after Saskatchewan complained that the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency had not followed the criteria set out in the federal-provincial agreement on allocation. An increased demand in the industrial egg processing sector resulted in quota increases.
The province argued that it had a comparative advantage in cheaper feed costs and should receive more of that increase. The agency said the province didn’t have the population base that would require an increased supply.
Saskatchewan launched several legal actions over the years and the most recent was a judicial review application in Ottawa March 23-24. At that time an agreement was reached and the board voted on the resolution two days later.
Saskatchewan filed formal notices April 24 to discontinue its legal action.
Laurent Souligny, chair of the Egg Farmers of Canada, was pleased with the outcome.
“It took a long time,” he said in an interview. “It’s better for the whole industry to resolve it and move on. We cannot stall forever on one issue.”
Harman said Saskatchewan producers were pleased with the negotiated settlement. It will lead to some new entrants in the industry, he said, as long as they can obtain enough quota to be commercially viable.
“None of us have wanted to be in the situation that we’ve been in,” he added.
In 2007, there were 65 licensed producers in the province. Table egg production was 23 million dozen, produced by 890,073 laying hens.
