Ontario hog producers are losing their central desk marketing board first established more than half a century ago.
Last week, after being petitioned by some producers and holding hearings last summer, the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission announced Ontario Pork no longer has the mandate to be involved in almost all hog marketing in the province.
It will continue to collect fees and be a lobby voice for producers and will be able to market hogs on a voluntary fee-for-service basis.
The marketing board has until Dec. 1, 2008, to design a new business model with reduced powers.
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“We believe we have made a balanced decision that provides marketing options for Ontario pork producers,” said acting commission chair Elmer Buchanan. “At the same time, we have brought fairness to all producers who benefit from the hard work the board does on their behalf and we encourage the board to focus its efforts on the future stability and competitiveness of the sector.”
For the past decade, Ontario has had a hybrid hog marketing system. Ontario Pork directly markets no more than 15 percent of hogs sold but is a mandatory third party co-signer of direct producer-buyer contracts.
Ending the “sole authority” status enjoyed by the board means that only Quebec will continue to market production through a central desk.
The three provincial single desk hog boards on the Prairies were dismantled more than a decade ago.
Last week, Ontario Pork embraced the recommendation that it lose its sole marketing authority.
“This decision is consistent with our strategic direction,” said Ontario Pork chair Curtiss Littlejohn. “It permits producers the flexibility to make their own choices while still retaining Ontario Pork’s marketing arm.”
At the George Morris Centre in Guelph, Ont., livestock industry analyst Kevin Grier said the hybrid system established in the 1990s was a compromise that satisfied neither supporters of an open market nor defenders of a single desk. He is a supporter of the open market system and appeared at the marketing commission hearings last July to call for a voluntary board.
The Ontario wing of the National Farmers Union had a different view. Dave Lewington, a northern Ontario farmer and NFU official, said the decision hurts smaller farmers.
“They will lose power through the loss of the central selling authority and a voluntary board will not be effective,” he said. “And small farmers still will have to pay dues to Ontario Pork even though it increasingly represents bigger producers so they lose there as well.”
