Chapter 3: Commercial Broiler Production

• 3.1 Broiler Chicken Production in Canada
   
  • 3.1.1 Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC)
  • 3.1.2 Production Trends
  • 3.1.3 Pricing
  • 3.1.4 Farm cash receipts from the chicken industry
  • 3.1.5 Comparison of production levels in Canada and abroad
    

3.1 Broiler chicken production in Canada

3.11 Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC)

http://www.chicken.ca

The CFC is the national agency that oversees the orderly marketing of chicken in Canada. The CFC was established in 1978 under the Farm Products Marketing Agencies Act and an agreement between the federal government, provincial agriculture ministers and chicken producers in member provinces.

The CFC Board of Directors comprises:

• one national chairperson elected from among the chairs of the provincial marketing boards;
• ten members representing the producers of each provincial marketing board;
• two processors chosen by the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council (CPEPC) to represent the interests of primary producers;
• a further processor chosen by the Further Poultry Processors Association of Canada (FPPAC) to represent the interests of independent further processors;
• a restaurateur chosen by the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association (CRFA) to represent the interests of the food services sector.

The CFC is wholly funded by dues paid by producers based on the amount of chicken marketed.

3.12 Production trends

Chicken production in 2003 was down from the previous year: nearly 939 million kg were produced in 2002, while the total for 2003 was 934 million kg. It was the first time in 14 years that a year-over-year decline in production had occurred. The decline is attributable in part to industry caution about quota allocations following a difficult year in 2002, and in part to the discovery of Canada’s first case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in May 2003: the resulting exclusion of Canadian beef from export markets has led to an oversupply situation in the domestic market.

In 2003 there were 2,808 chicken producers in Canada, down 1.5% from the previous year. The vast majority of these producers is concentrated in a few provinces, mainly Ontario and Quebec, but some chicken is produced in every province.

While there was a decline in 2003, Canadian chicken farmers have been increasing in numbers since the early 1990s. The country had 2,394 producers in 1990; by 2003 the total had grown to 2,808, a 17% increase. Farms have also become larger: over that same period, average production per farm grew by 43%, from 315,000 kg (live weight) in 1990 to 452,000 kg (live weight) in 2003.

A large proportion of Canada’s chicken production is concentrated in Ontario and Quebec: in 2003, 60% of all the chicken produced in the country came from those two provinces. The third-largest producing province is British Columbia. Together, these three leading provinces account for over three quarters of Canada’s total chicken production.

3.1.3 Pricing

In Canada, provincial marketing boards have the authority to set prices. In each province, the minimum price per kg that processors will pay to producers is set every eight weeks through negotiations between the province’s processors and the provincial marketing board. The price is established from current market conditions, input costs based on a cost-of-production formula, prices set in neighbouring provinces, and various other factors.

3.1.4 Farm cash receipts from the chicken industry

As shown in Table 6, there has been an increase in cash receipts for each of the products that make up the poultry industry in the past 20 years. However, the largest gains have been scored by producers of chickens and mature chickens. The cash receipts of these producers, as calculated by Statistics Canada, have increased by 152% over this period, from $605,868,000 in 1983 to $1,524,414,000 in 2003.

3.1.5 Comparison of production levels in Canada and abroad

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Canada ranked 13^th among the world’s chicken-producing countries in 2003, down from 11^th five years earlier. Internationally, the United States, China and Brazil are by far the largest chicken-producing countries, accounting for 50% of world production in 2003. However, if the 25 countries of the European Union are taken together, the EU was the world’s third-largest producer in 2003, with 8,022,641 tonnes.

Important Notices

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