Town hall meeting to highlight livestock woes

Friday, October 22, 2010

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

A grassroots livestock group in Perth County plans to take pork and beef issues to federal and provincial politicians as well as the public, in a town hall style meeting in Stratford next month.

The Nov. 26 event is called Farmers Matter.  The website devoted to the meeting, www.farmersmatter.ca was put on the Internet a few days ago.

“We are going to pull all the politicians that we can in here,” says Sebringville pork producer John Nyenhuis. He hopes that 700-800 people will attend the forum. Consultant and facilitator Hugh Maynard will moderate the discussions.

The steering committee for the event consists of Nyenhuis, Murray Brodhagen, Rostock, president of the Perth County Beef Association, Monkton pork producer Stewart Skinner, and former Canadian Pork Council chair Clare Schlegel, Tavistock.

“We found some pretty professional help here (for the website) and we are hitting the sponsorship trail to pay for this,” says Nyenhuis, while stressing “it’s not just a one time event.” Nyenhuis expects this effort will last at least a year to the next provincial election and possibly longer.

Provincial voters go to the polls next October. A federal election must take place by 2012.

 “Our Ontario parent organizations aren’t having a whole lot of luck with the government,” says Murray Brodhagen, Rostock, president of the Perth County Beef Association. “We thought maybe (politicians) need to hear the story from the stakeholders at the farm gate. . . .Our city cousins, need to hear our story. They just think the food just comes and it’s no problem and everything is cool and good.”

The province prefers that that farm issues be kept out of the mainstream media and the public eye, says Nyenhuis. “We are trying to give opposition leaders different ideas as to what they could do to solve the problem, to make election issues of it. To back it all up, it will be on the Internet,” says Nyenhuis.

 “It was a pretty safe bet for the province to renew the grain and oilseeds risk management plan” for 2010, Nyenhuis says. “They weren’t going to have to pay anything out anyway” because of high prices this year. He says livestock farmers are facing stiff competition in retail stores from pork and beef produced in Quebec by farmers supported by ASRA payments. You don’t see truckloads of grain and soybeans coming from Quebec into western Ontario markets, he says.

 Nyenhuis says the hog industry’s brief respite from prolonged low prices and high costs appears to be over already. “The price of pigs has dropped $20 in the last two weeks.” The price of corn for feed rose $50 a tonne in the last month and soybean meal that used to cost $350-$370 is now more than $400 a tonne.” Propane rose 40-45 cents a litre and hydro rose a cent a kilowatt.  “This thing is going worse again. And in the meantime we see more and more farmers are giving up hope.” BF