In or out: pork producers to decide

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

If Ontario’s pork producers support a marketing board with powers to control how hogs are sold and settlement is made, they are going to have to show it over the next few months.

Yesterday, the Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Farm Products Appeal Tribunal re-instated some key sections under Section 419 of the Farm Products Marketing Act which apply to hog marketing.

The re-instatement came with a blanket exemption for all producers. That means it’s up to producers to tell Ontario Pork they don’t want the exemption. And they must stick to their decision for 18 months.

Those who want the exemption will not be able to access settlement and transportation services provided by Ontario Pork.

Ontario Pork must notify producers of their options by May 17, three months from now.

“Having choice is a good thing,” says Ontario Pork chair Wilma Jeffray, who welcomes the ruling in general, while pointing out that the board has sought legal advice as to its ramifications and will look to the Tribunal for some clarification regarding its decision.

The exemption “was our positioning at the Tribunal,” Jeffray says. Producers “will be provided the opportunity to say ‘no, I don’t want to be exempted from the regulatory framework that is provided.’ . . . I think that is good. They will be making a conscious decision to do something.”

“I see it as a process to get to an outcome,” Jeffray says. “Producers will be well-informed. It will be a very structured process. It will be simple.”

Ontario Pork has continued with its strategic planning throughout the year-long appeal process. It will meet the Tribunal’s 18-month deadline for having strategic and governance reform plans in place, Jeffray says. The board will consult with producers next at the annual general meeting this spring.

Jeffray says Ontario Pork will be able to work with the packers and producers who supported the Commission’s October 2008 decision.

The marketing board did not appeal the Commission’s ruling of 2008. Producer Rein Minnema, Middlesex County launched the first appeal and the Huron and Perth Pork Producers Associations joined in.

Minnema returned from a trip overseas last evening and has not had time to consider the Tribunal’s ruling, says his representative, Elbert van Donkersgoed.

Perth County Pork Producers Association also appealed the Commission ruling and its president, Gerald Kolkman of Monkton, says “it was a good ruling.

“We have an opportunity, if we so choose, to develop a new marketing system,” he says. And there is an opportunity for a plebiscite or another expression of producer opinion, something that was not available when the Commission struck down the marketing board’s powers in 2008.
 
A Huron County Pork Producers representative did not immediately return a request for an interview today. BF