Chicken prices are being rolled back by 3.21 cents per
kilogram, effective Oct. 6. But only maybe.
The price reduction implements an order from the Ontario
Farm Products Marketing Commission to the chicken marketing board to adjust its
pricing formula for feed. What's not clear to the public is whether the chicken board offset this reduction with other increases.
The Ontario pricing change will ripple across the nation
because most provincial chicken marketing boards adjust t heir prices to
reflect Ontario prices.
The commission, apparently on prompting from the Association
of Ontario Chicken Processors, found that the farmers were charging for more
feed than chickens need to reach market weight.
Adjusting the feed-conversion ratio has reduced the price.
While the conversion ratio has been known for more than a
month, its impact on pricing for the six-week quota period that begins Oct. 6
could only be calculated once up-to-date chicken-feed-cost data became
available.
The chicken board and processors negotiated other factors in
the pricing formula behind closed doors and, while the chicken board says those
details are posted on its website, only people with special passwords can find out
what’s in the agreement.
Glenn Black of Providence Bay, a small-flock owner lobbying
for a policy change to allow people without quota to raise up to 2,000 chickens
per year – the limit now is 300 – has calculated that the change in the
feed-conversion ratio amounts to $1 billion per year.
Because it has gone on for 10 years, he figures the “chicken
mafia” owes the public $10 billion.
