The Rural Voice, 2003-04, Page 73PERTH 1!T
County Pork Producers NEWSLETTER
Jim Van Nes, President
519-393-6712
• The Rural Voice is provided to Perth
County Pork Producers by the PCPPA.
Ontario Pork Annual Meeting starts, ends with misgivings
Any opinions expressed herein may not
necessarily reflect the views of the
Perth County Pork Producers'
Association.
Even before I made it into the hotel
for the annual meeting of Ontario Pork,
I started having some misgivings about
the two-day event. A quick inventory
of keys, luggage, notes etc... ended
with the sickening realization that my
wallet was still sitting in my kitchen.
Only someone who has experienced
this can tell you how naked you feel —
100 miles from home with no money,
no credit cards and no driver's license.
I knew the money would be no problem
— I knew a lot of big money pork
farmers from Perth County would be
happy to help, but the driver's licence!
I can't tell you how carefully I drove
home, not wanting to be stopped by the
police.
The meeting format itself covers
two days. The first day is an education
day — open to all interested industry
people and covering a broad number of
industry topics. The evening banquet
was excellent and culminated with
"Awards of Merit" being given very
deservedly to Richard Hiscocks, a
producer from Oxford County, and to
Dr. Tim Blackwell, a vet with OMAF.
Congratulations to both.
The second day is the business day.
I want to touch on the parts of the day
that seemed the most pertinent to me.
Clare Schlegel gave an excellent
address and indicated it would be his
last as chair. Later in the day (just
before noon), he was acclaimed to
another two-year term as zone director.
I like the continuity that this provides
and I think that the provincial board
and the new chairperson, whoever that
may be, will benefit, as well as all pork
producers in Ontario from the
knowledge that Clare has gained.
Maybe there should be a seat created
on the board for the past chairperson?
Thank you Clare for your efforts, your
presence and your abilities. I am proud
to have been represented by you.
I was concerned by the
"accountability session". I believe that
portion of the meeting should be closed
to the media so that county councillors
can ask frank questions of our
provincial directors, and can, in return,
expect frank answers. I know there
were some questions that were not
asked because the session was open.
Ken McEwan presented a report
detailing the costs and returns of
collecting a fee from producers who
export weaners and light feeders out of
province. His analysis questioned the
financial benefits from the effort,
suggesting minimal financial benefits
to Ontario Pork for their efforts. I
questioned the report during the
resolution session in which a resolution
called for a "voluntary checkoff" from
exporting producers. These exporting
producers have a great number of
benefits provided by Ontario Pork and I
still believe that they should have a
mandatory checkoff of some
description, if only in the sense of
fairness to the producers in this
province who are paying the current
service fee. These exports have gone
from approximately 400,000 to 500,000
hogs per year in Ontario in 1999, to 1.6
million head last year in Ontario, over
five million head Canada -wide. I think
Ontario Pork needs to be looking
seriously at the underlying cause,
which is probably financial, and what
we can do to keep more of those pigs
and the jobs they would provide, in this
country. With "Country of Origin"
labelling now law in the U.S., and due
to go from voluntary to mandatory in
the near future, we have another reason
to know the impact these pigs will have
if they cannot continue to go to the
U.S.A.
Since coming home from the
meeting and hearing our Prime Minister
saying we are not going to support the
United States in the war in Iraq, I am
even more concerned. I think as a
country we would be very naive in
thinking that this action will not have a
cooling effect on relations, at least in
the short term, between our two
countries. If that deterioration includes
trade, and I think that it will, it could
make us as pork producers very
vulnerable. With live exports at an all
time high and with processed pork also
going to the U.S. at a time when we are
at such low prices in both countries, we
could become a major target for a
protectionist -minded government.
Losing the U.S. market or being
countervailed to somehow be part of it
will have a chilling effect on our
industry and I think we have to start
looking at all of the possibilities.
Interestingly we defeated a resolution at
the annual meeting to spend any more
money or efforts on why weaner pigs
continue to go the United States. Go
figure!
At the meeting we also defeated a
resolution giving the board the
discretion to keep county councillors on
provincial committees longer than the
recommended three concurrent one-
year terms that they can now serve.
Apparently the board did not want the
"discretion" to do this, instead
suggesting we were better served by
having "new blood" rotated through our
committees. Interestingly, we
apparently have some of our
committees with county representatives
who have been sitting for more that the
three years allowed. So much for
discretion. One can only wonder if
rules like this should be applied to the
provincial board as well?
Finally I want to thank Larry
Biesinger who rode with me to Toronto
and who helped me make it home
safely (without my driver's license) by
pointing out all the lane changes, other
traffic, stop signs, lights and exits.0
— Submitted by Russell Danbrook
PERTH COUNTY PORK
PRODUCERS' PORK PRODUCTS
• Smoked Pork Chops • Fresh Pork Chops
• Stuffed Loin Chops • Smoked Sausage
• Smoked Cheddar Sausage
• Bacon Burgers • Teriyaki Pork Steaks •
Vittorio's BBO Sauce
AVAILABLE FROM:
Steve Hulshof (Kinkora) 348-8167
Walter Bosch (Monkton) 356-9000
Ted Keller (Mitchell) 348-9836
APRIL 2003 69