PROVIDENCE BAY—Providence Bay’s Glenn Black, president of the Small Flock Poultry Farmers of Canada, will be facing off against the Chicken Farmers of Ontario next week in an Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food appeal hearing. Mr. Black says the growing and selling of chickens in the country, under Canada’s Supply Management System, is at a crisis level.
The Expositor spoke with Mr. Black last week as he was preparing for the May 14 appeal tribunal.
“I’m trying to focus on what’s good for Ontario and Canada,” he said. “Chicken Supply Management has been drifting way off course and needs to be righted.”
Mr. Black quoted statistics that state that 7.6 percent of Canadian families can’t afford the food they need to feed themselves, with this number more than doubling in Ontario.
With rising awareness that chicken is a healthy, lean option for Canadians, Chicken Farmers of Ontario, among other Canadian groups, are using this trend to their advantage, he said, increasing the costs each year by an average of 3.75 percent. “They are looking to make chicken at or equal to hamburger on a dollars per kilo basis, and they’ve blown way past turkey,” he said.
Mr. Black explained that the cost of raising beef cattle on feedlots takes approximately 20 to 25 kilos of feed to create one kilo of beef. It only takes 1.83 kilos of feed to produce one kilo of chicken.
“Chicken should be 1/20th the cost of beef as 60 percent of the cost of raising the animal is the cost of feed,” he said. “They have a monopoly and they can do as they please.”
Mr. Black spoke of the ‘Frankenstein chickens’ that are being created by the industry due to the additions of antibiotics and arsenic in the feed. Both of these methods cause the chicken to grow twice as fast “creating this Frankenstein thing we call meat,” he said.
‘Real’ chicken, he said, has a 3.5 to 4 Omega 3 and 6 ratio. Factory chickens boasting Omega 3 and 6 have an 18 to 25 ratio. Studies have shown that high levels of Omega 3 can cause arthritis, immunodeficiency diseases and allergies, he said. The addition of antibiotics also leads to the creation of antibiotic-resistant super bugs.
Mr. Black’s personal flock consists of 100 laying hens and one ‘token’ meat bird, “just to keep my finger in the pie. Bird regulations are just way too onerous.” His eggs are sold at the farm gate.
Should the ministry rule in his favour, “There’s an opportunity for over 400,000 additional jobs in Ontario if we’re able to just get 10 percent of the market share from the big guys so small flockers can grow and develop,” he continued. “And that just comes with the stroke of a pen from the Minister of Agriculture. She has the powers.” (The minister of agriculture for the past year has been Premier Kathleen Wynne.)
“The Chicken Farmers of Ontario has filed a motion to dismiss my appeal, saying ‘he’s a whack job, don’t listen to him’.”
“It’s been a long, lonely struggle,” he added, noting that while he has heard from other small operations that they will be at the May 14 hearing, he is doubtful. “It will be me facing one to six rabid Toronto lawyers wanting to eat me alive.”
Max Burt of Burt Farms in Ice Lake has faced the appeals tribunal before, also taking the Chicken Farmers of Ontario to task, but for a different reason.
Mr. Burt explained that the Supply Management System began in 1964 because of the low costs of chicken at the time. Prices were so low, he said, that farmers were losing money.
“Right now the industry has continued to be built out of southern Ontario by the producer base,” he said. “When we need more chicken, the producer base grows.” Mr. Burt noted that the industry has lost over 30 producers in a year, but the number of birds remains the same. “Is that the model we need?” he asked, referring to the “consolidated industry.”
He spoke of the Excel Foods listeria crisis in Alberta—a plant that saw one third of Canada’s beef processed through its doors. “That’s the problem with allowing huge processors: you just can’t shut that facility down because we need it too badly. If I made a big mistake I would be done and out of business, taking on the costs myself, but life would go on for the other producers around me,” he continued. Excel may have taken a financial hit for the shutdown in operations, but the brunt was largely passed on.
Mr. Burt said the problem with the Chicken Farmers of Ontario begins with its mandate of meeting consumer demand by creating a high quality product. If Mr. Burt’s neighbour wanted to buy chicken from his farm, a high quality product, they can’t. “They chose to dig in their heels and say they (the neighbour) can buy chicken anywhere they want to.”
Mr. Burt’s issue with the Chicken Farmers of Ontario is that the production model requires that he buy a minimum of 14,000 units per year, the equivalent of 70,000 chickens annually, to buy into the system. Two years ago, he said, Northern Ontario producers saw 43,500 chicken processed at five plants—half of what they wanted him to grow.
“There’s an attitudinal problem,” Mr. Burt added. “We have to think differently if we’re going to develop and grow the system. If we do want to expand local food, and I believe the government does, it could be done with the stroke of a pen,” he shared Mr. Black’s turn of phrase, “at no cost to anyone.”
He likened the Chicken Farmers of Ontario to a big shade tree, blocking out the light to allow the young trees to grow and develop.
“I wish Glenn the best of luck,” he said.
