Editorial: A Tale Of Two Meetings

Jeff Green | Jul 28, 2021

A few years ago, I covered a meeting that was a first, and probably a last. The meeting was held at the Rotary Hall that Frontenac County shares with Fairmount Home. There were a number of politicians there, as well as economic development types from Kingston, Frontenac County and the provincial and federal governments.

One of the unusual aspects of the meeting was the presence of the leading goat expert with OMAFRA (The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs). Another was the presence of some Chinese investors, a first for Frontenac County, but the real outlier was the fact that dozens of farmers from across Frontenac, L&A and Leeds Grenville were there as well. Even though the Fairmount Home/Frontenac County office complex is located across from one of the largest farms in rural Kingston, I've never seen a farmer at a meeting there, before or since.

The subject of the meeting was goat milk, and the farmers were there to hear about a new agro-business opportunity, the goat milk business.

Feihe, a chinese company, was building a baby formula factory in Kingston, not for the Canadian market, but for the Chinese market. They were building in Kingston after KEDCO (The Kingston Economic Development Corporation) had spent a considerable amount of time, and had secured millions of dollars in federal funding support, to convince Feihe to come to Kingston.

Part of the attraction of Ontario was the glut of skim milk on the market, because of a shift in the domestic market towards higher fat milk and cream products.

Another attraction was the made in Canada logo that would be stamped on the containers of powder that were to be shipped back to China. A scandal involving melamine laced milk products has made Chinese consumers wary of milk products that are made in China.

But Feihe had other plans. In addition to skim milk, they were planning to also produce goat milk based formula, because goat milk is closer to human breast milk, in composition, than cow's milk is.

Unfortunately for Feihe, there was a supply issue. The entire annual goat milk production, in Ontario, is less than they require to supply the goat milk based formula production line that they were building.

That's where our local farm community came in.

I watched the farmers as they listened to the presentations from economic development types, some of the management people at Feihe, politicians, and the goat milk expert from OMAFRA who apparently did not get sufficiently briefed about the tone he was supposed to convey.

He said a few things, one was that goats are tempermental: “goats can drop dead if you look at them the wrong way” was one memorable quote, and he said that the wholesale price of goat milk can be lower than the cost of producing it at times.

The farmers sat silently, for the most part. A few asked some pointed questions. It was pretty clear that no one was buying into what they were being sold by the establishment types at the front of the room.

At the time, I thought the whole idea of producing baby formula, for hundreds of millions of middle class Chinese families, in our little corner of Eastern Ontario, was preposterous..

It has not turned out very well. There is no goat milk formula being made at the Feihe plant, and the milk-based baby formula facility was the subject of a damning expose by the CBC this past winter.

I remembered that meeting while I was attending a very different meeting, a meeting that was attended by a number of the farmers who were at that meeting a few years ago.

This was a COVID distanced outdoor meeting on June 30. There were farmers spread about the parking lot between Food Less Traveled and the Pharmacy in Verona. There were two economic development people there, one municipal politician, and a bunch of farmers. The presentation about a proposed local abattoir, delivered from the bed of a pickup truck, was coherent, the numbers that were presented all made sense. The demand for the product is strong, the supply is there, but the processing capacity is needed. The only problem is a lack of money. The entrepreneur who is willing to go into debt to bring a new abattoir on stream, is short about $2 million.

No government is willing to invest. The same federal and municipal governments who put in millions in cash, fee reductions, and loan guarantees for a hair-brained scheme, are nowhere to be found for a local abattoir.

The abattoir issue has been well documented for over a decade. It  is a national issue, and while investing in one local facility, without an overall plan, would be questionable policy, why is there no provincial or national plan to support local abattoirs with financing, loan guarantees, etc after all this time.

There are onerous regulations in place that make it hard to start up or maintain a small facility. but, where are the investment dollars to go along with the safety protocols when every politician will tell you they recognise the need?

If Cory Priest, who is looking for support, were provided with a package to help him get his abattoir built, he would pay it back, within a decade.

Feihe will never pay anything back to the government of Canada or the City of Kingston.

At the risk of sounding simple minded, I wonder why we support large international corporations with crackpot ideas, but not smaller local enterprises with good proposals, solid plans, and all the potential for success in the world?