New veal marketing board will take a while to establish

Monday, April 22, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

It could be a year or two before the Ontario veal producers marketing board is up and running and in the meantime the status quo remains in effect for farmers paying the $3 per head check off.

Ontario Veal executive director Jennifer Haley says it will take this long to set up the board because in addition to creating new regulations for the marketing board they have to carve themselves out of the Beef Marketing Act. Having to do both steps means it will take a lot more time to set up the veal board compared to if they just had to create regulations to establish the board.

“It’s much more complicated because we have to get out of something else,” she says. The Farm Products Marketing Commission hasn’t given Ontario Veal a timeline but “we are cautiously optimistic that it will be sooner rather than later.”

In an April 19 press release, Ontario Veal notes that 88.3 per cent of producers voted in favour of the proposal to establish a marketing board for veal. Those who voted in favour represented 93.1 per cent of the production of those who voted. The mail-in vote was conducted by the commission March 18 to 29.

The strong support to establish the marketing board means the commission will proceed with creating a veal marketing board, the release says.

The commission is responsible for “helping us to develop all the requirements under the Farm Products Marketing Act to set up the marketing board regulations,” Haley says, noting that includes how the organization will be structured and its responsibilities.

Haley says they will notify farmers and industry partners once the new organization is ready to be launched “so that there will be lots of notice.” BF