Ontario Rabbit withdraws from livestock alliance

Thursday, October 2, 2014

by DAVE PINK

The group representing Ontario’s rabbit producers has been forced to withdraw from the Ontario Livestock Alliance because its members were not paying their voluntary dues.

At the Ontario Rabbit annual general meeting in the spring, producers voted overwhelmingly to support the organization and its membership in the alliance with a voluntary payment of 20 cents per rabbit.  But not enough of the producers were paying.

“Unfortunately, and for whatever reason, we have not had a good response to this request and, ultimately, the producers have spoken,” Michelle Sanders, the president of Ontario Rabbit, said in a news release.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Sanders said the Ontario Rabbit board of directors would be meeting Monday to discuss the future of the organization and its re-entry into the alliance. Sanders said she would prefer not to comment until after that meeting.

UPDATE Oct. 8, 2014: It’s unlikely that Ontario Rabbit will rejoin the alliance, Michelle Sanders, the organization’s president said Tuesday after meeting with her board of directors. “There’s always a hope, but we’d have to get a majority of producers to want to do it.” END OF UPDATE

She did say that it was almost impossible to know the number of rabbit producers in the province, but estimated it at about 200. Some have larger operations, with more than 300 breeding females, while many others amount to nothing more than hobby farms. “A lot of them stay underground,” says Sanders.

Jennifer Haley, the executive director of the Ontario Livestock Alliance, said the door is open if the rabbit producers want to return. The alliance also represents the province’s veal and goat producers.

“Rabbits are a very small part of what we were doing. We will miss them, but it doesn’t provide a huge impact on the scope of what we do,” she said. “There’s more than enough involved with veal and goats to keep us busy.”

In the news release, Sanders said that membership in the alliance had offered several benefits to the rabbit producers, including the development of biosecurity measures for rabbitries, cost of production workshops, the development of a best practices manual, development of an artificial insemination pilot study, as well as providing resource materials.

“It is a sad day for the Ontario rabbit sector,” Sander said in the release. “My hope is that we will be able to bounce back re-focused and ready to harness the opportunities in the sector, but a lot of that will depend on the will of the rabbit producers.”

There are two major processing plants for rabbits in Ontario, one in Arthur, and the other in Flinton, near Peterborough. BF