Pork board transition heats up

Thursday, November 20, 2008

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

Today the province announced the makeup of the controversial committee which will oversee the stripping of monopoly powers from the Ontario Pork Producers Marketing Board despite the fact that the advisory board has actually, already met twice according to Ontario Pork chairman Curtiss Littlejohn.

Rumours of the makeup of the committee began to stir in the countryside last week. Some grassroots producers claim the deck is stacked against small producers because the committee is made up of packers, commission members and four producers who took part in hearings in August seeking to take away the board’s monopoly powers. There are only two representatives from Ontario Pork. 

“I think the commission is steering this particular direction paternalistically...It’s not the producers who want to go in this direction,” says Larry  Skinner, Listowel, immediate past chair of Ontario Pork. “There should have been a better balance there of people with known views of how it should be.”

“There is a lot of dissent in the countryside right now,” says Doug Ahrens, chair of Perth County Pork Producers. He says the committee “appeared to be stacked” against the board. “A lot of people feel the Farm Products Marketing Commission has gone too far and the time lines aren’t reasonable.” Ontario Pork is due to lose its single desk selling powers by April 1 of next year.

Glencoe producer Rein Minnema says he has appealed the Farm Product Marketing Commission’s decision to dismantle the pork board’s powers to the Farm Products Appeal Tribunal. Minnema has complained to the Tribunal before about pork marketing problems. This time he appears as the board’s saviour.

About 10 years ago he launched a class action lawsuit against Archer Daniel Midlands on pricing fixing ingredients in pig feeds, and won. “The marketing system needs to be fixed,” Minnema says. The commission’s decision in October means there will be “nothing left.”

The hog industry advisory committee does not represent average producers, he says “and it should.” At the Ontario Pork annual meeting last March “There was strong support from the floor to support the collective marketing system.” 

Minnema took a shot at Ontario Pork’s chair Curtiss Littlejohn for saying in early October that Ontario Pork agreed with the commission’s decision at the time.

However, Littlejohn says that decision of the Farm Products Marketing Commission “is consistent with the direction of Ontario Pork” but some issues were not dealt with “and the time lines are greatly accelerated.”

The Farm Products Appeal Tribunal has received Rein Minnema’s appeal of the farm products marketing commission decision, confirms tribunal coordinator Gloria Marco-Borys. She says she is working with Minnema to clarify “what it is he wants,”. 

The members of the Ontario Hog Industry Advisory Committee include:

• Cathy Aker, Maple Leaf Foods;
• Elmer Buchanan, Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission and interim HIAC Chair;
• Jim Clark, Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission;
• Dan Cohoe, Quality Meat Packers;
• Bob Hunsberger, Conestoga Meat Packers;
• Wilma Jeffray, producer/Ontario Pork elected director;
• Curtiss Littlejohn, producer/Ontario Pork elected director;
• Gary Pennings, producer;
• James Reesor, producer;
• Jim Van Nes, producer;
• Allen Van Ravenswaay, producer.

CORRECTION: The last three producers were presentors at hearings in the summer who sought to have the pork board dismantled. BF