The Rural Voice, 1999-03, Page 8Stewart and Eugene Whelan. Both
tirelessly and creatively built and
defended our early supply
management system and staved off
vertically integrated conglomerates
for the family farmer. Unity and
interdependence replaced chaos but
mankind has a short memory as
today's headlines reveal.
Ralph Ferguson's "Compare The
Share", plotted returns for live hogs
here. 1980 = $1.30 kg., 1989 = $1.38
kg., 1999 = lower! By contrast
farmers, what chance is there, your
new Ford pickup will be priced less
than 20 years ago? Why? Now, what
will it take for stubborn individualists
to finally admit working harder for
less return is not a noble goal?
Farmers must establish a fair
sustainable unified market price by
reassuming control of market clout. If
it's "in" to observe mergers of
megacorporations in the name of
competitiveness, (bankers included)
why is the concept so foreign to us on
farms? Who now really believes his
future is best served alone in a world
of madness? My CFFO Provincial
Board recently passed single desk
orderly marketing for all hogs in
Ontario.
Sustainable farming has naturally
imposed limitations beyond our man-
made systems. Technical
improvements abound to support our
chores in production. Most of all we
need each other to unite in a quest for
sane marketing to help ensure family
farming in a hopeful rural
community. Let's do it for our kids
now.°
David Hern
RR I, Woodham
Take control now
Ed. note: We do not normally publish
anonymous letters but because of the
timeliness of the pork crisis, we made
an exception with the following letter.
The Pork Producers of this
province need to get in tune with
what their precious OPPMB is doing
for them and not just deducting
4 THE RURAL VOICE
Feedback
'money from all hogs to support a bad
habit. The week of January 4 - 8 on
the web, all reports across the U.S.
corn belt from packer purchased hog
reports put the range of 50 to 59 per
cent lean hogs from $23 to $32 live,
in U.S. dollars not the $16 to $22 that
your board was quoting. Most
Ontario hogs would fit this category.
Where are you people anyway? This
range in Ontario equivalents would
be in the range of $.94 to $1.32 per
kilo not the $.48 to the $.68 you
received.
Quebec family farm pork
producers faced oblivion in the 1980s
due to vertical integration and the
onset of large farming enterprises.
They now have in place a system that
has virtually eliminated that situation
from happening, where by a check
off is made and matched by their
government for situations like this
one. Then they draw from the pot to
support the shortfall. One of the rules
of this system is that any one
producer can only be supported to
5,000 hogs or the equivalent of a 250 -
sow farrow -to -finish farm. In fact
vertical integration is a non -issue in
Quebec. Some Ontario producers
criticize this system. The question is
who is in problems? They are being
pressured to raise the support level to
10,000 hogs. This will be the biggest
mistake they will ever make!
'The OPPMB has missed great
many opportunities from 1980 until
now. In the 1980s it was high interest
rates that put farmers into problems,
well many had expanded their
operations requiring them to be
dependent on borrowed funds. Some
producers that produce today escaped
the 1980s to find themselves in
problems today. One such producer
said to me lately that the 1980s were
different, however I disagree: the
only differences are the
circumstances that prevailed.
Bruce County Pork Producers
brought forth recommendations to
implement supply management, the
pork industry disagreed and the
motion failed. Consequently most
pork production in the province is
concentrated into a small geographic
area of the province and fringe areas
now are a non -issue in production.
The reason, the OPPMB negotiated
Tripartite support and received a
tariff from the U.S. in reply. Helmet
Lowen then general manager said
that producers were covered by the
support mechanism, and the status
quo became the norm, instead of
abandoning it for removal of the
tariff, and becoming an aggressive
marketer and manager of the supply.
The province's packers asked the
OPPMB to organize shipments of
hogs so they would receive uniform
sized hogs in each and every pot load
of hogs. It did not matter to them that
all hogs be one size but that pot loads
were uniform in size. Some packers
had special requirements that could
have been addressed by the board.
All they had to do was sort hogs at
the assembly yards and transport
accordingly. The result was that
Maple Leaf Foods put in place a
vertical integration system that
independent producers condemn.
Don't blame Michael McCain for
this. The blame belongs solely to the
OPPMB for their mismanagement.
The OPPMB's reply to this was to
allow large farms to negotiate with
packers independently of the board,
with subsequent approval of the
board, and these deals were not a part
of the pool, thus creating a two-tiered
system and the sell off of the family
farm.
It is time to halt the insanity that
has occurred in the pork industry, the
family farm MUST be put front and
foremost in the industry. No I am not
talking about the mid-sized and large
farms but the 250 -sow farrow -to -
finish operations and smaller. Some
will say that this is insane but if the
larger producers wish to be
successful they must take care of
their fellowman first.
Implementation of the Quebec
system in Ontario must occur within
three months, that means the 5,000
hogs support limit, yes this will take
intestinal fortitude but it will be
worth it in the long run. The OPPMB