Egg Farmers of Ontario introduces changes to the handling of increased quota allocations

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

by SUSAN MANN

Egg Farmers of Ontario will once again be giving all provincial egg producers a portion of the increased quota allocation it gets from its national organization.

The change in policy comes after four years of using the allocation increase exclusively for the provincial organization’s layer-leasing program. The additional allocation comes from increased sales in the marketplace.

Harry Pelissero, Egg Farmers general manager, says the policy change to once again distribute the quota allocation increase to all producers was made in response to farmers asking “for some predictability.”

Not all egg farmers could take advantage of the voluntary layer-leasing program, which began in 2013, because having enough room in existing barns was a condition of lease.

The layer-leasing program continues under the new proposal that takes effect January 2017. Qualifying farmers can lease up to 1,800 birds. The increased allocation from Egg Farmers of Canada provides for about 600,000 birds being available for the leasing program.

Egg Farmers of Ontario received an increased quota allocation of about one million birds. “That is the allocation we would have received over the last two or three” rounds of allocations, Pelissero says.

Farmers pay a fee of $7.30 per bird per year as part of the leasing program.

The board will distribute the equivalent of about 490,000 birds to all 339 quota-holding farmers.

Thirty per cent of the 490,000-bird amount, 147,000 birds, will be used to ensure all farmers receive same number of birds, 433 each. The remaining 70 per cent, 343,000 birds, will be distributed to farmers based on their existing quota holdings.

“The more birds you have, the more you get,” he explains.

The new policy is “really a hybrid of keeping the integrity of the layer leasing pool intact and providing some predictably for our farmers,” Pelissero says. BF