Mandalay Farm owner Al Stannard is raising concerns about his farm potentially shutting down due to a lack of government funding for the Yukon agricultural industry.

“We’re almost being forced to shut down,” Stannard told the Star in a recent interview.

The Little Red Hen Eggs farmer has been commercially producing eggs for six years, contributing 1.6 million eggs to the market annually.

The farm is located about a half-hour north of Whitehorse, along the Yukon River.

Mandalay Farm has been fighting for supply management, a federal government policy which stabilizes prices for farm commodities for farmers and consumers.

Stannard told the Star they have jumped through many hurdles to meet government requirements for support, and they’ve received little help.

“Our argument is we need to be at a certain size to make money and we’ve done everything they’ve asked, and yet they’ve done nothing in return to help us, and we’re not asking for money to be given to us,” he said.

“We’re asking money to be lent to us for five years interest-free, and we would repay it after the five years because the first five years of any business is the hardest.”

“You know, we’re at 4,400 birds,” Stannard said. “And right now, we do all our own grading. We even have to label our own cartons.

“Once you get to a certain size, it becomes an economy of scale,” Stannard told the Star.

Mandalay Farms is hoping to get to 20,000 birds, enabling it to produce more products such as liquid eggs, boiled eggs and peeled boiled eggs.

“We’re not just some small producer, we are an agribusiness, which, in the Yukon, is a rarity,” Stannard said.

Kirk Price, the director of the territorial agriculture branch, said the Yukon government supports the agriculture sector through various programs and policies.

Those include the new Sustainable Cap Program, Cultivating our Future, and other initiatives.

“Over the last 20 years, the Yukon’s agriculture and agri-food sector has grown and developed to a point where it can produce and sell its products at local retailers and community markets throughout Yukon,” he said in an email to the Star.

“Sustainable CAP is a funding program that is cost-shared between the federal and territorial governments. Over the next five years, a total of $9.25 million in funds is being made available to support the Yukon’s growing agriculture sector,” Price wrote.

“This is a 25 per cent increase in funding for cost-shared programming from the previous Canadian Agricultural Partnership funding program.

“The Sustainable CAP funding is used to support agricultural and agri-food projects and initiatives in the Yukon,” Price added.

Sustainable CAP is one of five programs of its kind to be implemented in the Yukon in the last 20 years.

The other four are:

• the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (2018 to 2023);

• the Growing Forward 2 Framework Agreement (2013 to 2018);

• the Growing Forward Agreement (2008 to 2013); and

• the Agricultural Policy Framework (2003 to 2008).

“These types of funding programs have proven to be essential in providing significant support to many Yukon farm start-ups and aiding the Yukon’s agriculture sector to develop and grow over the past 20 years,” Price responded.

The federal policy, supply management, was created in the 1970s as a response to instability in farming commodity prices in industries such as eggs, dairy, and poultry.

At the time the policy was created, the Yukon was not included in the management framework – and still remains disqualified today.

Now, agriculture in the Yukon has grown significantly in the last 50 years since the policies’ development.

Mandalay Farm is looking for the same ability and opportunity to finance as those who are a part of the supply management system elsewhere in Canada.

“We want the same abilities as the rest of the farmers in Canada,” Stannard said.

The funding would provide Mandalay Farm with better access to financing which would allow the farm to upgrade, produce more, and potentially branch out of territory, he added.

“We are looking to expand our market simply for the fact that when we cannot market our eggs in the Yukon, we would like to be able to export them,” Stannard said.

With financing, Mandalay Farm wants to know its market isn’t landlocked to a territory with fewer than 50,000 people.

Stannard said they want to get to a bigger size so they can produce white eggs as well as the brown ones they’re known for.

He added that the honest truth about agriculture support in the Yukon is that it’s “weak.”

Price, at the agriculture branch, said the government is working with egg producers to explore various means of support and growth and competitiveness in the Yukon egg sector.

They’re looking for support and growth that will have positive impacts for farmers, processors, and consumers.

“We offer a number of funding programs and supports for the Yukon’s dairy, poultry and egg farmers,” Price said.

The government provides technical and research services for the broader agriculture sector through programs such as Cultivating Our future, and the Sustainable CAP funding program.

“We will continue to engage with farmers to ensure their interests and needs are considered as the industry evolves and grows,” Price said via email.

According to Price and the agricultural branch, the Sustainable CAP is a funding program cost-shared between the federal and territorial governments.

And over the next five years, $9.25 million in funding will be made available to support the Yukon’s agricultural sector.

Sustainable CAP is a 25 per cent increase in funding for cost-shared programming from the previous Canadian Agricultural Partnership funding program which provided a total of $7.4 million in support of nearly 500 agriculture projects across the Yukon.

Stannard told the Star that Mandalay Farm has received little government grant assistance. But compared to the advantages in the supply management policies, he noted, the funding is far less.

“We think that we should have fair and open access to the same advantages as everyone else had because agriculture is a subsidized industry in Canada and North America,” Stannard said.

Price said, “We have done some preliminary research into supply management; however, we have not made a decision on whether it would be appropriate for the Yukon to participate in Canada’s supply management system.”