By Marya Skrypiczajko

Last month, in a letter to friends, customers and the media, Fred Reid of Olera Farms announced the closure of his Abbotsford organic egg production business. After an expensive five year battle with the BC Egg Marketing Board (BCEMB) over the issue of a conventional marketing board controlling an organic commodity, a court ruled that Olera Farms must comply with the regulations of the BCEMB. Since Reid has not held a conventional quota to produce organic eggs in BC, he is being charged tens of thousands of dollars in fines and penalties and has been forced to close.

Olera Farms became organic in 1986 and has since been functioning as a biodiverse farm and the province's largest organic egg production business. One of the aims of organic agriculture is to create healthy balanced environments where agricultural crops and livestock work together to be a sustainable ecosystem. At Olera Farms, the chickens produced eggs, they roamed through the raspberry patches and vegetable fields, weeding and cleaning up the harvest as they foraged for food. Their manure supplied the needs of Olera Farms and other neighbouring organic farms.

When Olera Farms began operating as an organic egg producer there was no market infrastructure to support the organic egg market. Over the years, Reid and other organic egg producers created this, spending thousands of dollars on a federally-inspected egg grading station and developing distribution lines and a market for their product.

Organic eggs are unique. To be certified in British Columbia, organic eggs must come from hens that are fed an organic diet that does not contain any animal proteins, genetically modified organisms or antibiotics. The hens cannot be sprayed with pesticides, and they must each be given more than two feet square of barn space. They must spend six hours a day grazing outside. By contrast, free-range hens need only have access to the outside and hens raised in the conventional system may live in as little as 43 square inches of space. Neither is restricted to a regulated organic-style diet.

Organic eggs are also more expensive than conventional eggs due to the fact that the necessary infrastructure is more costly and the production is more labour intensive.

In 1998, when the BCEMB approached Reid and demanded he purchase a quota, he objected on the grounds that his product was not the same commodity as what their marketing board was governing. The BCEMB sells quotas for approximately $80 to $100 per hen which means that if Reid had purchased a quota, the price of his eggs would have risen by almost one dollar per dozen.

Marketing boards were set up in BC about 40 years ago to control the marketing of certain commodities. Today the regulation schemes of these boards have changed little even though the industries have changed. For example in the case of food, the organic industry now represents a significant portion of the marketplace. While organic commodities are distinctly different from their conventional counterparts, by law the conventional marketing boards still govern the entire marketplace. The marketing boards sell quotas and charge levies to produce certain commodities and then this money is used, in part, to buy up surpluses of the commodities. This means that if organic farmers are forced to buy quotas in the conventional system, they are supporting the very type of agriculture they are opposed to.

For three years, the Certified Organic Associations of British Columbia (COABC) negotiated with the BCEMB with hopes of being able to set up an independent organic egg marketing board of some sort. Sadly, the COABC was denied the rights to govern the organic egg market and, in turn, Olera Farms closed down.

The ruling on this case is an enormous loss for Olera Farms and also for the organic industry in BC as it demonstrates that the BC government does not support organic agriculture and leaves it up to conventional marketing boards made up of large-scale conventional producers to control the market of organic products. Proponents of organic agriculture fear that this may even lead to the erosion of organic standards.

The case of Olera Farms is closed, but the issue is still hot and the fight will continue before other farmers producing organic commodities find themselves in the same predicament. If you want to have a say in this, you can write to the minister of agriculture in Victoria.
In the meantime, if you're wondering where all the organic eggs have gone or why organic egg prices are rising, there's your answer.

Marya Skrypiczajko is the author of BC the Organic Way - Where to Find Organic Food in British Columbia available at bookstores and organic food stores. For the Certified Organic Associations of British Columbia see www.certifiedorganic.bc.ca





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