Cancellation a big financial hit to Ontario's poultry industry council
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
by SUSAN MANN
The cancellation of the London Poultry Show scheduled for later this month due to the avian influenza outbreak on a Woodstock-area turkey farm is taking a major bite out of the Poultry Industry Council’s budget.
Industry council executive director Keith Robbins says about 38 per cent of the council’s $400,000 general operating budget comes from events, such as the poultry show and golf tournament. The industry council, which delivers extension services as well as project/program management, has a partnership with the Western Fair District and gets a share of the proceeds from the poultry show. The two groups jointly put on the show.
They are currently exploring the feasibility of rescheduling, says Robbins.
Despite the benefits of the show, the industry council and Western Fair District decided jointly last week to cancel the show because it could pose a risk to the industry. The Feather Board Command Centre recommended they cancel it. The centre, made up of Chicken Farmers of Ontario, Egg Farmers of Ontario, Turkey Farmers of Ontario, and the Ontario Broiler Hatching Egg and Chick Commission, is the poultry industry’s disease management organization.
Robbins says the poultry show “is the primary source of our funding” from events. Other sources of revenue for the poultry industry council include: donations and grants (30 per cent), feather board contributions (22 per cent), individual and corporate memberships (four per cent), and miscellaneous (six per cent).
The poultry industry council will have to look at other ways to raise money to make up the budget shortfall if the show isn’t held this year or “we’ll run a deficit for the year,” he explains.
Robbins says the poultry industry council is holding discussions with the Western Fair District to talk about whether the show can be rescheduled. “There’s a lot to the process” of rescheduling the show, including potential conflicts with other trade shows, such as the Ontario Pork Congress. It’s being held June 17 and 18 in Stratford.
“About one-third of the show’s exhibitors would be both at the poultry show as well as the pork show,” he says. “You can’t just reschedule over top of something else.”
Heather Blackwell, Western Fair District director of corporate affairs, says it’s the first time in the show’s nearly 60-year history that it was cancelled. About 170 exhibitors had signed up to be there.
This would have been the first year the Western Fair District was to hold the two-day show in the newly renovated Agriplex on the Western Fair District grounds in London.
The poultry show is the major trade show for the poultry industry in Ontario that enables poultry industry representatives to network, learn the latest trends along with seeing and buying new equipment. “It’s where poultry farmers educate themselves and shop,” she says. About 2,000 to 3,000 people attend.
But getting a majority of poultry farmers together in one location near the spot where the outbreak has occurred provides for the potential to spread the avian influenza further, she says. “Why would we do that? As an agricultural society we support the agricultural community. It was the right decision to make.”
Robbins says the idea of not jeopardizing the industry “far outweighs any potential loss that we may incur.”
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has established an avian influenza control zone and expanded the radius from the Woodstock-area turkey farm confirmed to have the H5N2 virus to 10 kilometres from five. CFIA placed an additional 20 farms under quarantine on the weekend due to the establishment of the control zone.
So far, only the initially infected turkey farm has shown any sign of the disease, CFIA says in an April 12 press release. All of the farm’s turkeys have been euthanized. BF