The commercial egg industry in British Columbia is
the sixth largest in Canada. It provides about ten percent
of the total farm income. About 85 percent of all British
Columbia eggs are produced in the Lower Mainland, 10 percent
on the east coast of Vancouver Island, and about five
percent in the interior of British Columbia.
The export market between 1940 and 1949 created
favorable conditions for expansion of the industry. To
meet export demands, the Canada wartime government
promoted and facilitated production through agencies
concerned with extension, prices, subsidies and standards.
After the loss of the British egg contract in
January, 1949 exports dropped. Imports increased during
this period because of storage space shortage on the
prairies and price differentials between British Columbia
and the prairies.
The British egg contracts supplied the equivalent
of a floor price at wholesale level until January 31 1949.
The Canada government, in January, 1950, included eggs in
its Support Price Policy to assist farmers in adjustment
from wartime, conditions.
Analyses of data gathered for the period from 1943
to 1951 show that great annual and cyclical variations
exist in the commercial egg industry of British Columbia.
An annual average marketing peak occurred in January
with the low marketing month in July. Egg prices reciprocated with, an average yearly peak in July end a
lowpoint in January. Egg prices were higher in the
former half of the year, on the average, than in the
latter half, while feed prices were higher in the first
half and lower in the second half. Excess capacity
increased greatly after termination of the British
egg contracts in 1949. The annual egg-feed ratio, as an indicator of
profitability, seems to move with the annual returns to
capital and labour. The monthly ratio seems to precede
the marketings by some months.
An increased guaranteed minimum income over that
supplied by the present floor price will decrease excess
capacity and increase the number of farmers whose return
to capital and labour is more than the point of
disinvestment.
The problem of what the minimum guaranteed income
should be is considered through a reconsideration of the
floor price using producer criteria. The 1951 costs of
production are combined with the annual receipts from
fowl and eggs of a sample British Columbia poultry farm
to give a scale of returns to capital and labour, under
incremental increases in egg and fowl prices. Normal
perquisites decrease the cash Income necessary to give a
fair return to operator's labour as based on the average
annual wage for farm labour without board. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/41502 |
| Date | January 1952 |
| Creators | Herring, Stephen Harold Edward |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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