After two years of incubation, Canada’s 550 pullet growers are one step away from getting their own marketing board.
The Pullet Growers of Canada filed an application to form a marketing board last summer and now the Farm Products Council of Canada has agreed to launch public hearings into the request.
Dates for the hearings will be set in March, and individuals and groups have until Feb. 14 to file submissions to the council. If the application is approved, pullet growers will be able to set prices and establish quotas, which is how the other sectors of the chicken, egg and dairy industries work currently.
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To succeed, the pullet growers, whose bid is supported by the Egg Farmers of Canada, will have to show their marketing plan is in the interest of pullet and egg producers, processors and consumers; doesn’t violate existing trade agreements; and can garner federal and provincial support.
In an interview last fall, Pullet Growers chair Andy DeWeerd said work on the proposal began two years ago. He said his members need a marketing board to ensure they get a fair return on their production and to generate funding for a new code for animal care.
Canada’s 550 pullet producers specialize in raising female chicks from hatchling eggs to be sold as replacement laying hens for the table egg industry.
