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16 THE RURAL VOICE
markets are sacrificed in order to
protect dairy and poultry farmers;
unfair to food processors, whose
access to quality inputs is limited to
what local suppliers will produce at
regulated prices and even unfair to
efficient dairy and poultry farmers,
whose opportunities to expand and
become more productive are hemmed
in by the system's constraints," Hart
writes.
Ha
rt has been widely quoted by
publications such as the
Globe and Mail which has
published several editorials calling
for an end to "farm subsidies",
including marketing boards.
But Canadian Poultry magazine
points out that the accepted view that
Canadian consumers pay more for
supply managed products is dead
wrong. In 2004, for example, Grade
A Large eggs averaged $2.04 per
dozen in Toronto but $2.53 in New
York.
Canadian Poultry quotes a recent
study by the George Morris Centre
which concluded that the supply -
managed poultry and egg industries
"provide a vital link to what is a
cycle of stability and investment,
facilitating the long-term, consistent
investment by rural Canadians in
their human and social capital, an
investment that helps ensure not only
the social viability of rural Canada
but also its economic prosperity."
The whole supply managed sector
generates $6.8 billion in farm cash
receipts while contributing a net
$12.3 billion to the Gross National
Product. It sustains more than $39
billion of economic activity and
employs more than 215,000
Canadians across the country.
Jim McIntosh refutes Hart's
supposition that the security of
supply managements leads to com-
placency and a lack of efficiency.
The cost of production survey that
each producer fills in. sets the
formula for pricing that drives greater
and greater efficiency, he says.
"We produce more dozens of eggs
on less feed than ever before," he
says. "We use Tess acres of grain to
produce a dozen eggs now than in
any previous year."
Canadian producers get more eggs
per hen than their huge U.S.
counterparts and have .better feed
conversion rates.
But Ontario's lead is based on
previous governments' commitment
to publicly -funded research, he says.
Government cuts to research funding
may cost Canadian producers their
competitive edge.
Rising costs for energy and
building new facilities have caused
unavoidable increases to the cost of
production but last year's
plummeting feed prices led to a 15
cent per dozen cut in the farm -gate
price of eggs. Yet the store price to
consumers didn't reflect this drop in
price, McIntosh says.
Ontario producers showed their
flexibility by increasing production
in order to provide processors,
commonly known as breakers, with
all the eggs they needed for
processing. The move was necessary
to prevent breakers importing eggs,
he said.
Technology over the years has
revolutionized the egg business. "The
environment for the worker and for
the hen is much better." McIntosh
says. "There's more air flow, even in
hot weather." The oft -criticized cages
laying hens spend their lives in are
cooler than litter.
And the absence of litter also
leads to much less dust in the air, he
says. "They're not walking through
their droppings," he says of the cage
system.
The clean environment plus
advances in breeding and feeding,
mean no medications are used in the
egg industry, McIntosh says.
"Technically, we're all producing an
organic egg. We use natural
ingredients."
The workload is greatly reduced
by mechanized egg gathering
equipment. It takes about two hours
to gather the eggs from a 30,000
flock, a job that would have taken
eight hours previously.
Mechanization also follows the
egg to the grading plants where
modern equipment can grade and
pack 300-400 cases of 30 dozen eggs
each, in an hour. (There are two egg
grading companies left in Ontario.
McIntosh can remember when there
were three egg grading stations in
nearby Seaforth, alone.)
Today "the first time the egg is
touched by human hand is when you
take it out of the carton," McIntosh
says. In Canada all eggs are washed
before grading, a step not followed in
Europe.