HIGH STAKES
Supply management isn't just
about supply mangement
There's a million-dollar gamble going on in the Ontario chicken business. As usual in these cases, there is an innovative agricultural producer on one side and a marketing board on the other.
Near St. Catharines, Ont. there is a family of chicken farmers named Drost. They once had marketing quota, but the high cost of quota and the constraints on expansion got them thinking. Supply management, they reasoned, is a system for limiting domestic supply to hold prices up. But it has nothing to do with the export market. So they developed a remarkable plan to grow chickens for export only. Sold live, the chickens do not enter any Canadian processing plant and cannot be mingled with domestic supply-managed chickens. Exploring various specialty markets, the Drosts eventually came upon the ethnic market in New York, where they found an intense demand for a particular kind of bird.
The breed is a large, slow-growing red-feathered chicken-of-choice in Muslim and certain Asian ethnic markets in New York City. The birds are shipped live to New York and are typically sold in that state to the consumer, individually slaughtered on the premises just before delivery. This market pays a premium for a very specific product to any competitive, reliable supplier.
The Drosts have been raising the birds, from chicks brought in from Quebec and selling them in New York, with no marketing board quota. What they are doing has absolutely no impact on domestic supply, domestic prices or any other Canadian chicken producer. The Drosts, who are experienced chicken raisers, follow elaborate flock health and other good management practices.
The Drosts have since been sued by the Ontario chicken board for $1 million in unspecified damages, under broad parts of the marketing legislation that allow for no loopholes from board controls. The Drosts will argue that their activities are outside the board's jurisdiction. It will be up to a judge to decide whether the letter of the law makes any legal or common sense, or whether the law in this case is the proverbial ass.
For the marketing board, it is another example of the fanatical zero-tolerance policy toward new ideas, especially if the threaten marketing board power, control and supreme authority.
AGRIWEEK by Century Publishing Co
Supply management isn't just
about supply mangement
There's a million-dollar gamble going on in the Ontario chicken business. As usual in these cases, there is an innovative agricultural producer on one side and a marketing board on the other.
Near St. Catharines, Ont. there is a family of chicken farmers named Drost. They once had marketing quota, but the high cost of quota and the constraints on expansion got them thinking. Supply management, they reasoned, is a system for limiting domestic supply to hold prices up. But it has nothing to do with the export market. So they developed a remarkable plan to grow chickens for export only. Sold live, the chickens do not enter any Canadian processing plant and cannot be mingled with domestic supply-managed chickens. Exploring various specialty markets, the Drosts eventually came upon the ethnic market in New York, where they found an intense demand for a particular kind of bird.
The breed is a large, slow-growing red-feathered chicken-of-choice in Muslim and certain Asian ethnic markets in New York City. The birds are shipped live to New York and are typically sold in that state to the consumer, individually slaughtered on the premises just before delivery. This market pays a premium for a very specific product to any competitive, reliable supplier.
The Drosts have been raising the birds, from chicks brought in from Quebec and selling them in New York, with no marketing board quota. What they are doing has absolutely no impact on domestic supply, domestic prices or any other Canadian chicken producer. The Drosts, who are experienced chicken raisers, follow elaborate flock health and other good management practices.
The Drosts have since been sued by the Ontario chicken board for $1 million in unspecified damages, under broad parts of the marketing legislation that allow for no loopholes from board controls. The Drosts will argue that their activities are outside the board's jurisdiction. It will be up to a judge to decide whether the letter of the law makes any legal or common sense, or whether the law in this case is the proverbial ass.
For the marketing board, it is another example of the fanatical zero-tolerance policy toward new ideas, especially if the threaten marketing board power, control and supreme authority.
AGRIWEEK by Century Publishing Co
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