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JUNE 2020
Producer Update
Graham Snell
Executive Director

Hello Chicken Farmers,

I am pleased to be writing this to you on my official 4 th week on the job! The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, but with the help of Kim, Jenny, Adam and the members of the Board, every day I make more sense of what is going on and how I am able to advocate for you, our farmers and our industry as a whole.

Covid-19 has no doubt left an impression on the world and the Agriculture Industry. Worldwide markets in all areas are showing massive declines as industry tries to make sense of the pandemic and how we can move on from it.

Pricing has been a focus and as I write this, we are preparing to set the allocation numbers for A-165 tomorrow. We are looking for achieve one national number overall to stabilize this market as soon as possible. We want to make it as fair and equitable for everyone and the Board has the farmer’s best interests at heart.

We had to unfortunately cancel our annual golf tournament for this July. Saskatchewan Health has indicated that we are unable to hold a gathering of our size. We will do our best to make sure we can make it happen next year though.

I have met a few of you so far that have been able to make it into the office in Saskatoon. I look forward to meeting each one of you eventually, as restrictions loosen up and we can get back to normal living and operations. Please feel free to call the office or send me an email with any questions, concerns or if you just want to shoot the breeze.

Take care,

Graham

Nick Langelaar
CFC Director
Not since the avian influenza crises in British Columbia in 2004 has the CFC faced such a challenging time to accurately supply the marketplace as we have had to do recently.  The A-163 and A-164 allocations that were done on February 5, 2020 had to be adjusted in April. This was also our last in-person meeting. It has been all zoom meetings since but hopefully for not too long. 

A-163 was adjusted -7.5% under the February 5 allocation for western Canada and -15% for central and eastern Canada. This was because processor markets are significantly different in western Canada than in the east and Covid-19 impacts on chicken processing were different.  The timing of this adjustment was far from ideal because growers in the first part of A-163 had already had their placements in the barns whereas growers in mid to later cycle faced chick placement cutbacks of 5, 10 or 15%. 

The A-164 (July & August) allocation also was initially set at -7.5% for western Canada but upon a planned review half way into the cycle, the number was reduced to -6.25% because markets began to rebound. Allocation for central and eastern Canada was initially -12.6% but reduced to -11.35% for the second half. 

The CFS Board is keenly aware of the discrepancy of the A-163 and A-164 production among our growers and is working to find an equitable solution for all. 

There also needs to be a carefully managed and non-disruptive repayment plan worked out between the western provinces and the rest of Canada for the regional allocation differences in A-163 and A-164. Discussions on this have already begun at CFC and the implementation will likely be over a longer period of time.  

A-165 (September & October) was set this past week with one national number for all of Canada. Markets are improving as the provincial economies continue to reopen and so allocation was set at -2%. 

It has been a most challenging time trying to manage the supply of chicken across Canada such that all Canadians have access to chicken and all stakeholders in the supply chain are kept as whole as possible. 

The category III antibiotics issue has been temporarily put on hold. It was to have been dealt with on June 2nd but it is now scheduled for mid-August, 2020.   

Regards,

Nick
The CFS office is open again, all staff is working in the office.
In order to minimize office traffic, we ask that anyone stopping by please contact us prior to your visit to let us know when you will be arriving.
Thank you!
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, our allocation schedule for 2020 has become tentative in order to further analyze market conditions. Please disregard all pre-set allocation dates and MD deadlines and watch your email for NEW allocation dates.
2020 CFS Board and SCIDF Committee
The CFS Annual General Meeting was held March 12th, 2020 where the following members were announced to the CFS Board and SCIDF Committee, since then, internal elections have been held within CFS Board of Directors and positions are listed below:

CFS Board of Directors:

Henry Van Ee, Chair
Ben Middleton, Vice-Chair
Nick Langelaar, CFC Director
George, CFC Alternate
Wally Sloboshan, Director

The SCIDF Committee has yet to schedule a meeting since the AGM however the members are as follows:

SCIDF Committee:

Patrick Keet
Rudy Martinka
Tyler Keet
Glenn O'Hara - Advisor

Annual reports for both the CFS and SCIDF are available at the office or on our website.
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