National egg system cracking

BY CHRISTINA SELBY

The good news is that the processor egg industry is enjoying "unprecedented growth," announced Henry Koop, re-elected chairman of Ontario Egg Producers (OEP) at the board's late March annual meeting. The bad news is that provincial in-fighting is threatening the existence of a national egg marketing system.

At the heart of the squabble is the question of which province gets the biggest piece of the pie. The general consensus is that processors need more eggs. But while Ontario and Quebec want to ensure a large percentage for their members, other provinces have decided to forge ahead on their own.

Manitoba's 500,000-layer non-quota operation near Altamont is a perfect example of renegade growth, but Neil Currie, executive manager of Canadian Egg Marketing Association (CEMA), told producers that the national agency had to take some responsibility for that situation. "We were too slow off the mark," he said, and the door was left open for an entrepreneur to move in and fill the gap. "The agency doesn't like it. Nobody likes it."

Manitoba Agriculture Minister Harry Enns had threatened to pull the province out of CEMA if room was not made in the national program for the Sanders' Altamont operation.

Last November, CEMA directors reached agreement on the national industrial products program, a deal that saw Ontario and Quebec getting the lion's share of 430,000 additional layers and a national cap on industrial production at five per cent of the domestic level.

But the additional production failed to quiet Quebec's dissatisfaction with the national system, and the province has pulled out of the industrial egg program. Quebec failed to remit January levies after initially voicing displeasure with the program last June.

Now Ontario is threatening to follow suit. Should Quebec's concerns not be addressed, Ontario will remove industrial production from the program on July 1. Unless agreement is reached among all 10 provinces, OEP "will have no alternative but to finance, manage and operate, in concert with the Fédération des producteurs d'oeufs de consommation du Quebec, a central Canada industrial product program," stated the board in a letter to CEMA at the end of February.

Ontario can't operate with a nine-province system, says Koop. Ontario and Quebec share the breaker market, he says, and Quebec's failure to submit CEMA levies will also lower their production costs.

"We'll have a price differential of as much as 10 cents," Koop says. "It's usually between two and three cents."

Meanwhile, breakers in Ontario and Quebec are crying out for more eggs, he says. "The need is in central Canada. That's where the market is." Only 60 to 65 per cent of supply requirement is being fulfilled here, Koop says, while western breakers are receiving 90 to 95 per cent of their requirements.

The Ontario board also shares many of Quebec's concerns with regard to CEMA. There is a serious need for the voting process to change, says Koop, as one province, one vote doesn't work when Quebec and Ontario have about 60 per cent of the country's egg production between them.

Koop favours a system whereby the country is divided into three regions - east, west and central - and any CEMA decision would require at least one positive vote from each region.

Neil Currie, CEO of the national agency, met with representatives of the Quebec board in late March. As to whether or not the parties will be able to solve Quebec's problems, "I think we have no choice," he says.

The combined influences of "greed, provincialism and regionalism" are destroying the national system, CEMA's second vice-chairman Gordon Hunter told Ontario producers.

So where does all the in-fighting leave the parties heading into negotiations for a new national agreement? OEP general manager Brian Ellsworth, who announced he would be retiring next year, told Ontario producers the solution was more rather than less provincial autonomy: "I'm not sure what powers [the provinces] don't already have."

The National Farm Products Council is looking for permanent solutions and has hired a mediation company to facilitate agreement between the provincial boards and CEMA. The time for "band-aid" solutions is over, says Cynthia Currie, chair of the council; supply management can only be maintained if all parties learn to share.

The two fundamental problems are industrial egg production and CEMA's system of allocating quota to the provinces, says Cynthia Currie. The mediation company "won't provide the solutions," she says, but will act to facilitate the solutions.

CEMA and the boards have until July 1 to reach consensus on at least these two issues; progress has to be reported to federal ministers at that stage in the lead up to new federal-provincial agreements, she says.

On a more positive note, all 10 provinces were in attendance at an organizational meeting with the mediators last month and have agreed, in writing, to participate in the process.

"The egg agency has to solve its problems," says Cynthia Currie. "There's no doubt about it."

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


back

Get ready to fight for water

In 1993, the United Nations adopted March 22 of each year as World Water Day - a day when each nation is invited to devote special attention to promoting proper development and conservation of its water resources. This year the international theme for World Water Day was "Everyone lives downstream," a subtle reminder that, in an increasingly crowded world, whatever we do with the water we use inevitably affects other people.

In Ontario, access to clean, fresh water is largely taken for granted. We have the Great Lakes, among the largest freshwater lakes in the world, and thousands of smaller lakes spread across central and northern Ontario. Some 750,000 km of rivers and streams feed the Great Lakes Basin. On average, the province gets approximately one metre of water as rain and snow each year, enough to keep most streams and rivers flowing strong and relatively clean. We can understand why crowded regions or those with scant rainfall should be concerned about water, but should Ontarians?

Yes - for three reasons: Contamination, consumption and supply!

Contamination

During the droughty years of the early '60s, experts reported that Lake Erie was oxygen starved because of intense algae growth, and was "dying." Lake Ontario was following suit.

Phosphorus was considered a key culprit, and a massive effort was undertaken to remove phosphates from detergents and reduce it in water runoff from agricultural fields. These efforts, together with the flushing action of almost two decades of above-normal rainfall, helped to reduce the problem.

Then it was such toxic chemicals as PCBs, dioxins and metals in our lake waters. Much of these were coming from leaking chemical dumps along the shores of the Great Lakes and the rivers that fed them (about 80 per cent from American sources). DDT also came from farms. Bilateral action to clean up these sources have resulted in a reduction in these chemicals.

More recently, there is increasing concern about contamination of ground water and streams with nitrates from, among other sources, intensive farm operations. So the "Everyone lives downstream" theme is as relative to Ontarians as anyone.

Demand

Around the world, water demand is increasing at twice the rate of population; 20 per cent of people now face water shortage. In some parts of North America, water is almost as valuable as gold, and ownership of water rights means power and money. However, with the exception of a few regions like the Grand River drainage basin, water supply has never been a dominant concern in Ontario.

On average, we consume some 520 litres per person per day, well above the average in the industrialized world, and demand is increasing by almost three per cent per year, primarily from industry and municipalities. Crop irrigation is as yet only a small part of the demand (about one per cent), but is also increasing. Areas where these competing interests conflict are likely to increase, and farmers will need to be at the table as conservation and management programs in these areas are negotiated and developed.

Supply

Accustomed to the prevailing rainfall amounts of the past decade or two, it's easy to assume lower rainfall amounts happen elsewhere, not in Ontario. However, Great Lakes water level data over the past century show that the drought conditions of last summer and fall throughout much of Ontario (although the fourth driest of the past 50 years) may be a minor irritant compared to what can happen as our climate fluctuates from decade to decade. Even the drought years of the early '60s may have been relatively modest. During the 1920s, for example, water levels in Lake Superior were an average 0.5 metre lower than today, while Lake Erie dipped to almost a metre below current levels in the mid-1930s. Such periods of serious drought lasting as long as a decade could happen again. Furthermore, if Ontario (along with the rest of the world) becomes significantly warmer over the coming decades (as predicted by climate experts), increased evaporation and a possible reduction in summer rainfall may significantly add to such risks. In fact, several studies suggest that long-term average lake levels in the Great Lakes could drop by more than a metre during the next 100 years, and summer moisture deficit in the Grand River basin could double.

That, together with the added demand for water for irrigation and other activities under a hotter, drier summer climate, could mean that Ontarians may need to take some lessons from Western Canada in better water resource management.

The sooner, the better.
Henry Hengeveld is science adviser on climate change, Environment Canada

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


back