In a few days Rosemary Giberson must decide whether to sell half of her organic, free-range chicken flock or buy quota from the provincial egg marketing board.
The Strathmore, Alta., egg producer doesn’t like either option.
Giberson sells eggs from her 600 hens to a Calgary health food store at a premium.
But with the higher cost of special organic feed for the hens, she doesn’t think there’s money left over to buy quota from the provincial board.
Giberson estimates the $39,000 quota and fees charged by the Alberta Egg Producers Marketing Board will add another 70 cents to the cost of a dozen eggs.
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But board officials have little sympathy for organic egg producers who don’t play by the rules. Quota is required if a producer has more than 300 birds, which the board says is a matter of fairness to all 167 supply-managed egg producers.
“The system was developed for all producers,” said Brenda White, marketing and communications manager with the board.
Alberta produces about 35 million dozen eggs a year. Giberson’s 600 chickens produce about 14,400 dozen eggs a year.
In an April 20 letter to Giberson, the board gave the producer one month to sell her flock or buy quota. Giberson has decided to appeal the decision. She wants the board to exempt her flock because organic eggs are a market that traditional egg producers can’t fill.
Her eggs cost $4 a dozen, double the price of other eggs. She said her customers don’t want to buy eggs from the grocery store. They want dark-yolked eggs, free of chemicals or pesticides, produced from chickens raised outside.
“It’s a very under-serviced market,” she said.
Armena, Alta., producer Ron Hamilton agrees. He sells the eggs from his 200 organic, pasture poultry chickens at health food stores and Edmonton-area farmers’ markets. He said he can’t keep up with demand.
“We haven’t even scraped the market,” said Hamilton.
“There’s so much room it’s incredible.”
But Hamilton does sympathize with chicken and egg producers whose livelihood would be eliminated if American chicken and egg producers were allowed to dump excess production in Canada.
“We would not have a chicken producer left in Canada without a marketing board,” said Hamilton, who leased quota from the Alberta Chicken Producers Marketing Board for his 9,000 pasture poultry chickens.
Giberson wants the Alberta egg board to be more like the British Columbia Egg Producers Marketing Board, which isn’t forcing organic producers to buy quota.
But that’s about to stop, said Darren Jansen, an organic and free-range egg producer from Chilliwack, B.C., the first organic producer in British Columbia to buy quota for his 8,000 bird flock.
There is a growing market for free range, organic eggs in B.C., too, but B.C. doesn’t have extra quota to sell to organic producers.
Beginning soon, the B.C. board will make available a special quota for organic and free-range egg producers to bring them under the umbrella.
Jack Vaandrager, an egg producer from Abbotsford, B.C., said the board is working to get organic egg producers into the system.
“We’re trying real hard with the organic producers, but it’s real hard. They’re a breed unto themselves.”
Giberson may be the test case for the Alberta egg board. Susan Gall, the board’s general manager, thinks it’s only the first of a growing debate within the industry.
“Those types of markets are growing,” said Gall.
White said the board hopes it will be able to negotiate a settlement with Giberson.
“The last thing we want is to have the hens be disposed of,” White said.
Never in the 30-year history of the marketing board has it seized and disposed of birds, Gall said.
