Canada’s supply management industry could have a new member if efforts by pullet growers to form a national marketing agency succeed.
Pullet farmers are asking the Farm Products Council of Canada to grant them Part 2 Agency status under the Farm Products Agencies Act. The move, if granted, would recognize pullets as a separate sector within the supply management system.
Up to now, pullets have been represented by organizations serving egg farmers but not pullet growers.
OWN VOICE
Those producers need a voice of their own, said Andy DeWeerd, chair of Pullet Growers of Canada (PGC).
Read Also
Seeding Indigenous agricultural prosperity
National Circle for Indigenous Agriculture and Food says Indigenous agricultural success needs strong relationships.
“Pullet producers have an excellent relationship with the egg organizations. However, as an industry, we cannot rely on the good graces of the egg organizations to represent us,” DeWeerd said in a statement.
A pullet is a young domestic hen. Pullet growers buy day-old female chicks from hatcheries, raise them to 19 weeks of age and sell them to egg farmers.
There are about 550 pullet growers in Canada, including 84 in Manitoba, many of whom also have their own layer operations.
Currently, pullet growers must follow egg industry standards, which includes an on-farm HACCP program as part of Egg Farmers of Canada’s Start Clean- Stay Clean food safety program.
But independent status would give growers their own voice on matters including cost of production, disease control, HACCP programs and housing standards, said DeWeerd.
“Being an autonomous agency will give PGC the required legal powers to make decisions on these issues on behalf of pullet producers across the country.”
NEW AGENCY
The possibility of a new nat ional pul let -market ing agency was a topic of discussion at the Manitoba Egg Farmers annual meeting in Winnipeg March 9.
Cal Dirks, a pullet grower from Steinbach, said PGC is holding consultations with producers in other provinces about possibly forming such an agency.
Dirks said pullet growers in Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia are already regulated under their respective provincial egg-marketing boards. Quebec is in the process of regulating its producers.
Manitoba producers produce according to pullet quota which they buy from Manitoba Egg Farmers.
But producers in other provinces do not come under direct authority of their egg boards. As a result, the industry is fragmented, said Dirks, who is also PGC treasurer.
“There’s no regulatory framework for many of the pullet growers in Canada,” he said. “There isn’t a legal mechanism to represent them, to implement specifically pullet-related programs.”
INDUSTRY PROGRAMS
Bringing pullet growers under a national umbrella would include them in industry programs such as salmonella enteriditis testing and animal welfare standards. It would also give them the same benefits other supply management producers enjoy, such as production quotas, regulated prices and import controls, Dirks said.
Tim Lambert, Egg Farmers of Canada general manager, said his agency supports pullet growers’ attempts to organize.
“Our industries are so integrated that we need to work closely with the pullet association and the on-farm food safety programs and insurance programs,” said Lambert, who attended last week’s MEF meeting.
“That’s why it makes sense and that’s why we’re supportive of it.”
PGC will hold an annual meeting in Ottawa April 27. The organization recently changed its name from National Pullet Growers Association. [email protected]
———
“Wecannotrelyon thegoodgracesof theeggorganizations torepresentus.”
– ANDY DEWEERD, PGC
