Supply Management Confusion

Confusion about Supply
Management kills any
hope of intelligent debate

A survey of Canadian consumers was conducted to help define preferences and trade-offs in NAFTA trade negotiations with USA who again complain about Canada's unfair Supply Management system.

In a survey by Angus Reid of 1,512 Canadians during June and July, 2017  just 4% of Canadians claim to understand a lot about Supply Management ("SM").

However, even this handful of self-proclaimed SM experts were confused about which food commodities are controlled by SM (ie. incorrectly including beef & pork under SM).

Worse, 52% of Canadians believe beef is supply managed, when it is not; and 51% of Canadians believe milk is not supply managed when in fact dairy represents about 80% of the entire system. 

Based on this confusion, any survey that shows support for SM by Canadian consumers is a misleading mirage promoted by SM snake oils salesmen who have a pay cheque to protect.

For detailed results based on knowledge of supply management and support levels, click here.

For detailed results by age, gender, region, education, and other demographics, click here.



Confusion about Supply Management kills any hope of intelligent debate

CFO: From Misleading + Blackout, to Partial Disclosure

Chicken Farmers of Ontario ("CFO") surveyed more than 600 in Ontario about chicken, then went into almost total, complete blackout on the survey results, except for a mis-leading Media Backgrounder and Media Release on Dec. 3, 2014.  I congratulate CFO on disclosing some of the damaging survey results at their Annual General Meeting on March 12, 2015; 99 days late.  I now encourage CFO to release the entire survey report so as to provide full, open, transparent, and accountable governance of Ontario's chicken industry for the people of Ontario.

It is good that CFO, like all other businesses who might care what their stakeholders think, conduct a comprehensive, independent survey, done by a third party.

In the past, it appears that CFO designed their surveys so complaints and problems were ignored or hidden.  To illustrate that point, let's design a biased question that has no downside (as only the chicken gods have seen the survey, I don't really know what CFO did, but we can speculate):

Q1:   How do you feel about the fresh chicken sold in Ontario grocery stores?

• Best chicken in the world
• Excellent
• Very Good
• I'm satisfied
• Not applicable or no comment

This improper question has 4 degrees of happiness, and a neutral catch-all, but nowhere can a dissatisfied consumer express their opinion.

With this biased question, I'd expect to hear, "93% of consumers are satisfied or better with the chicken sold in Ontario".  No matter how good or bad CFO really performs, they can spin the results to make CFO look fantastic.

If things get really ugly, and 90% of consumers are so pissed off at CFO and Ontario chicken, that they choose "Not applicable or no comment", then CFO could still say, "Of those who expressed an opinion, 93% are satisfied."  What that means is that 90% clicked next to the most negative choice available, and of the 10% that CFO hasn't pissed off yet, they were disbursed among the 4 remaining positive choices so that 93% of that 10% chose "Satisfied".  It sounds great until you do full disclosure.

It's all in how you word the question.  Mislead the public through creative wording of the question and misinterpretation of the survey results.

Is that what CFO has done?  Only full disclosure of the survey and its results will reveal the full truth.

Therefore, I call upon CFO to fully disclose the survey and all of the results.

After CFO received the survey results, they issued a Media Backgrounder on Dec. 3, 2014.  It was subsequently deleted from their website by CFO (too much information ?), but through the miracle of Google's web crawler and cache system, I was able to obtain a cached version of that document.  All 100% positive, smiles & chuckles, rainbows and butterflies.  Isn't that precious!  I have preserved a copy and stored it here.  CFO also issued a Media Release, which is archived here

On March 13, 2015 an explosive article about CFO's survey was published on Better Farming.  Due to the critical importance of this information, I have copied it for archival purposes, and stored it here

From this unprecedented partial release of survey data from CFO, we now learn that most people have no clue how Supply Management works, or if chicken is under Supply Management.  In spite of these facts CFO twists the survey data so as to claim that the vast majority of consumers support Supply Management.

Read the CFO press release, then the BF article.  It's hard to believe they're referring to the same survey.

There 'aughta be a law.

There is a law, truth in advertising, and no misleading of consumers.

Too bad CFO ignores it.

Does these embarrassing results justify CFO to bury the survey results, or twist their meaning?

I don't think so, but what do you think?

Agricultural Myth Busting

CFIB (Canadian Federation of Independent Business) has attempted to bust 4 "myths" with its recent survey of CFIB members who are in the agriculture sector with their 2014 State of Canadian Agriculture Survey.  Did they achieve their purpose?

CFIB states that the public (and possibly many farmers) have the strong impression of problems in agriculture (or significant opportunities, depending on your outlook).

CFIB is upset that there is a general feeling in Canada that:

• Agriculture is not innovative and modern;
• The agriculture sector is shrinking.
• Farming is unsustainable and potentially environmentally harmful.
• Farming is moving away from family businesses toward corporate operations.

I would agree that many Canadians, if not the majority, hold these impressions.  Even those who are directly working in agriculture, or serve the agriculture industry indirectly, seem to have these concerns.

CFIB offer some survey results to try and bust what CFIB calls these "myths about Canadian agriculture".

CFIB asked some very broad and general questions, which in some ways, lead the survey participants to create a positive spin on the survey results.  In that regard, I can't agree that the survey was well constructed, nor balanced, nor objective.  Obviously, CFIB has conducted this survey for their own purposes, as well as those of the members surveyed.  The survey seems to reinforce CFIB's talking points and lobbying efforts, which is most likely the primary point and purpose of the CFIB survey.

For example, CFIB says that 81% of agri-businesses use the Internet for obtaining "information, products and/or services".  Based on the survey, we don't know whether this Internet access occurs from their own home, or their agri-business offices, or the public library, or their kid's house in the city.  Statistics Canada says that  83% of Canadians have access to Internet in their homes as of 2012.  We therefore conclude that farmers surveyed are at least 2% behind the Canadian average.  This may be within the accuracy of the survey, but certainly is not a ringing endorsement that proves Canada has world-class, tech-savvy ag. businesses.  CFIB appears to have gone way beyond the data by generous assumptions.

Agriculture is a broad area.  I focus here on this Blog on poultry (supply management & small flock), for meat birds and eggs.  I can find one comment in the survey that might be from an egg farmer:

"We invest in leadership training, we pursue new or improved product lines through R&D initiatives, we commissioned surveys into emerging market trends to support our customers’ development of their business. We are building sales into the Omega 3 market but it is very costly relative to short term payback."

The other comments might be from the poultry sector, but it is impossible to tell for sure.  While the above comment sound good, is it proof positive that clearly busts any or all of the alleged myths of agriculture?  I think CFIB has again stretched the survey data way beyond the breaking point.

Perhaps the Supply Management sectors can take this as a challenge, to construct a balanced, unbiased survey of their members, then publish ALL of the results so we can all know for sure.  Obviously, there will be areas that can be improved.  These local boards can then set their strategic plans and publish them in the open.  Everybody (government, members, small flockers, and consumers) can then fully understand the issues, the current status, and plans to improve.

Note that surveys can be constructed so as to make it difficult to impossible to get negative outcomes in the results.  I wouldn't call that a balanced, unbiased survey.  Garbage questions create garbage survey results.

Later, when a follow-up survey is conducted and published the following year, we can see the plan vs. actual, why the shortfalls occurred, and what they are going to do to close those gaps.  On-site audits by independent auditors can be done at random farm survey locations to determine how skewed the true results are, as compared to what the farmer wrote on their survey form.  Then we know what the farmer thinks (or wants others to think), and what is really going on.  That's powerful data!

That is what accountability with the public's money and power is all about.

I forecast that as long as Supply Management is allowed to exist in its current form, there is higher likelihood  of snow blizzards occurring on the Moon.  In other words, it will never happen under the current regime.

That's why this Blog exists, and will continue to advocate for substantial change in Supply Management.

Chicken Farmer Survey, Delmarva USA (1998 - 2014)

Delmarva Peninsula, Delaware,
Maryland, and Virginia USA

The Delmarva Peninsula (on Chesapeake Bay, at the cross roads of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia) is a hotbed for the US poultry industry.  Poultry farming is the leading industry in this region.
Over the last 50 years, the US chicken processors (eg. Tyson, Perdue, etc.) have gotten bigger and stronger.  Chicken went from family farm to mega factories.

Today, independent family farms still grow chickens, but on a scale thousands of times bigger than before.  These farmers sell directly to the mega corp. chicken processors, or to integrators (an intermediary company who collects the chickens from many different farms, then delivers then to the major chicken processors).
All is not well in the US poultry system.

These chronic issues prompted the conducting of a survey for Demarva chicken growers.  Prof. Tom Ilvento, Professor at the Food and Resource Economics Dept. of University of Delaware conducted a survey of Delmarva chicken growers in 1998, 16 years ago.  The original survey data of chicken growers is presented in a summary report available on the Internet  (see 1998 Survey of US Chicken Farmers, Delmarva ).

This report re-analyzes the survey data, asks some key questions, and seeks a 2014 follow up on progress achieved on these substantial issues during the last 16 years (from 1998 to 2014).  See our previous Blog post Unhappy US Chicken Farmers ) for the source of the survey, and our improved analysis and measurement system for the survey results.

Q1:   Dr. Ilvento's analysis of the 1998 survey data suggested that 73% of Delmarva chicken farmers were "satisfied".
I suggest that this analysis was simplistic and would tend to mis-direct people from an important issue.
By weighting the survey data, we find that the overall satisfaction score is just 22.65%; pretty dismal.
What has been done about this since 1998 (16 years ago)?  Is it substantially better today?

A recent program on NPR suggests the 1998 problems are fossilized, chronic, and still not solved.

What should be done?  When?




Q2:  Having a light at the end of the tunnel is essential for staying the difficult path one might be on.

In this case, we have just 19.8% glimmer of light; not very much.

Based on this, I would suspect that many chicken farmers would become frustrated, disillusioned, depressed, or give up.

Has that occurred in the last 16 years?

What has been done?  What should be done?



Q3:   Walking on egg shells with a large, rich, and powerful organization, who has the power to make you or break you, is obviously stressful.

Trust and effective relationships depend upon open and honest communication.

With a score of just 24.7%, chicken farmers are more afraid and cautious, not trusting.

What have been the consequences of this daily fear over the last 16 years?

What has been done to improve the situation?

What more needs to be done?

Who will do it?

Q4:   As bad as the previous question was, this one is even worse.  Here, the majority feel that communications are inadequate.

With the challenges in today's economy, the growing need for food that is more affordable, and the world-wide competition; all of these require trust, and clear, effective communication between everybody in the supply chain.  To do otherwise is to encourage inefficiencies, and disaster.

Again, what has been done in the last 16 years to improve this situation?

Who will stand up and work towards a solution in this important area?


Q5:   A 52% score here is the brightest star in the Delmarvian sky.

As this is the closest connection between the large processor and the independent farmer, it is most important that a good relationship exists, and excellent, unstrained communication occurs.

What was done in the hiring and training of the Flock Supervisors so as to ensure this occurred?

It is usually best to build from a centre of strength, working outwards towards the highest priority weakness; rather than the worse.  If true in this case, this is the starting point.

What needs to be done so that the Flock Supervisor and the Chicken Farmer can start working together even more on one or more of these key, outstanding issues?


Q6:   At -15%, this is the most negative response in all the survey questions.

It would seem that the farmers wanted to keep the strong, beneficial relationship they have with their respective Flock Supervisor, rather than needlessly switch on some arbitrary schedule.

Were the chicken farmers listened to?

If not, why not?

What has been learned from this in the last 16 years?





Q7:   The Settlement Statement is a measurement and reporting tool.  This is the end result of much hard work.  It would seem reasonable that they would be assisted in fully understanding the Settlement Statement, as well as the reasons why that exist, are know, or can be estimated that support or cause the results reported here.
As a measurement tool, it should use the SMART method (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Timely).  It also helps if the measurements are believable.

What has been done in this important issue?  Have commitments been made to ensure all issues are resolved in the near future?



Q8:   At a -12.7% score, the majority of chicken farmers are dis-satisfied with their income.
When income is considered, one must consider the risks taken, and the effort expended.  Neither of these factors is included in this question.

In a related article about chicken farming in the Southern US, Grist said,

"Payment [of independent chicken farmers] is results-oriented, based on measures like total weight gain of the flock. It’s a system, says the United Food and Commercial Workers, that leaves 71 percent of growers earning below poverty-level wages."

However, the wording of this question may have prompted this negative response, or enhanced the negativity.  Possible re-wording of the question would have produced different results.

Alternatively, the farmers may be economically abused by their powerful customers.

Has the situation resolved itself, or gotten even worse in the last 16 years?

What should be done now?


Q9:    Garbage in, garbage out.
It is obvious that poor quality chicks will cause the US chicken farmer to have difficulties with FCR (Feed Conversion Ratios, ie. the amount of chicken feed required to get 1 kg. of weight gain), mortality rates, and disease resistance.

Some of the comments from the NPR program suggested that the mega corps started the farmers out with high quality chicks, then at some point, switched to inferior chicks (assumed to be a lower cost for the mega corp to purchase, thereby saving them money), but the farmer was hurt by the resulting poor performance that resulted.

Whether it is a mistaken unjustified impression, or solidly based in fact, either way, the farmer feels cornered and at the mercy of the mega corp who contracted him.  Either way, this can create a dysfunctional relationship, loss of trust, and hard feelings.

What is a farmer to do if they start to feel this way, but are up to their eyeballs in debt from previously meeting the never ending improvements in the farming practices and "state of the art" equipment?  Abandoning the mega corp will surely cause the farmer's bankruptcy and loss of the family farm, yet a minor frustration or inconvenience to the mega corp.

Is there solid evidence to confirm or deny this impression about chick quality?  If none exists, even after another 16 years since this survey was done, we have to wonder why?

Q10:    This is the strongest negative feeling of all the survey questions.
It appears that the chicken farmers realize that as bad as the chicken mega corp. are, insidious and inflexible government intervention via regulation is even worse.
In the NPR show, a number of farmers commented about other statutes and regulations against predatory practices by the mega corps, yet the courts are unwilling to enforce them.
Perhaps the US farmers have seen or heard of their Canadian cousins and their government regulations, and would rather fight on through rugged individualism, rather than start down the crazy road of Supply Management or excessive and restrictive government regulation.
Can the system be improved so as to provide the farmers a level playing field, and prevent the abuse of power against the chicken farmer?
A chicken processor in the Southern US went bankrupt, prompting Congress to request additional regulations to "protect" farmers.  In Nov. 2010, the Delmarva Chicken Growers Committee responded and lobbied against the proposed regulations.

Q11A:   The survey asked for the farmer's ideas for other programs and services that might help.  The formation of a "Growers Committee".
Delmarva Poultry Justice AllianceIn 1995 Jim Lewis, an Episcopal minister, was investigating at-risk people living in the Delmarva area.  Rev. Lewis found that people in the at-risk population had
one thing in common: some connection to the poultry
industry

In 1995 Rev. Jim Lewis, an Episcopal minister, was investigating at- risk people living in the Delmarva area.  Rev. Lewis found that people in the at-risk population had one thing in common: some connection to the poultry industry. He helped form the Delmarva Poultry Justice Alliance ("DPJA").  Did DPJA help prompt the development of this survey in 1998?

The need and success of DPJA eventually lead to the formation of the National Poultry Justice Alliance ("NPJA").  Both of these organizations did many good works to help with social justice for chicken farmers, catchers, and workers in chicken processing plants.  Unfortunately, it appears that neither of these groups exist today.

Today, a Grower's Committee exists under the wing of Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc.  As of Dec. 2013, the Growers Committee was lobbying against the planned phosphorous regulations to protect against land and water pollution.

Did all of these fairness and social justice issues get resolved to the satisfaction  of the US chicken farmers?  Alternatively, perhaps these social justice movements were infiltrated, high jacked, and disemboweled by the mega corps.

Q11B:    The chicken growers tend to get little feedback on their performance, they just get a cheque and a number of deductions removed with little explanation.  The grower has to trust the mega corp.  Ask too many questions, and this may be  your last contract with that integrator, and/or the mega corp who buys from that integrator.

It is obvious from the response from this question, chicken farmers want objective, unbiased, verifiable data associated with their inputs (chicks, feed, drugs, etc.), the work performed by the farmer, and the resulting flock of chickens that were removed from the farm when fully grown.

As long as there is an direct opportunity for gain from fudging the data, there will be doubt, and the potential for abuse.

Did the situation significantly improve in the last 16 years?


Q11C:   Nobody's perfect, same for chicken farmers.  If each farmer has a reasonable opportunity to learn and improve over time, everybody gains.  We need to maximize learning and the rate of continuous improvement, and minimize risks.

There seems to have been great interest in a program to help chicken farmers to overcome unsatisfactory performance.  A common database of best practices is often found to help.  Forums for chicken farmers to meet and freely share ideas could also be done.

Has this occurred?  If not, why not?


Q11D:   In addition to education (see below, Question 11E), do new entrants have the ability to get the necessary funding?

Contract growers invest 50% of all the capital needed to grow chickens.  Grower’s return on that capital investment is typically less than 3%, while the mega corp. enjoys profits of 33% net return.

When you have a balanced business relationship, those who take the risk and make the investments typically get the majority of the benefits derived from success.  That doesn't appear to be the case for Delmarva chicken farmers vs. their mega corp. customers.

What should be done, if anything?

Q11E:    Learning to become a chicken farmer isn't easy.

Due to the highly competitive nature of the business, you can ill afford expensive mistakes, nor waste a moment.  There are thousands of details that must be taken care of; miss one, and it can quickly lead to a disaster for your chickens, or your bank account.

If you are unable to attract new blood into the industry, each year the old gang of veterans gets older, wiser, die, move away, frustrated, or some other problem that causes them to leave the industry.  This will eventually result in super concentration of ownership, and/or the death of the industry as the next generation chooses to stay away from the chronic abuse and unfair treatment.

In addition to education, do new entrants have the ability to get the necessary funding?

Today, University of Maryland School of Extension offers a course for new and existing poultry farmers.  Is this enough?

Conclusions

1. No system is perfect, not even in the USA.
2. We need to listen to all sides of the issue, and treat everybody fairly, especially the weaker party and minorities.  It's the right thing to do.  It's what we would want if the roles were reversed.
3. Canada doesn't want nor need a US-style chicken production system.  We have enough difficulties without adding that burden.
4. Using the challenges inside the US chicken production system as sufficient reasons for keeping Canada's current Supply Management system is a fallacious Straw Man argument.

Unhappy US Chicken Farmers

US chicken farmers in the Delmarva Peninsula, the highest concentration of chicken farming in the US, are very unhappy.

The 1998 survey of US chicken farmers is available here.  I assume that most contract growers in other parts of the US are equally unhappy, but we have no proof of that yet.

Why then, does this 1998 survey by Dr. Tom Ilvento, Professor at the Food and Resource Economics Dept. of University of Delaware say that 73% of them are satisfied?

Here is Dr. Ilvento's data in graph form.  I added the red text for adding clarity.

The vote was widely dispersed, but if you add up all those farmers who are on the "Agree" side, in various strengths, you do get a total of 73%.

However, this discounts the degree of strength for that agreement.

Obviously, if everybody said, "Strongly Agree", you can't get any better than that, so we can call that 100% satisfied.  Similarly, if everybody said "Strongly dis-satisfied", that would be -100%, or 100% Dis-Satisfied.

When couples get divorced or separated, they don't go from "love" to "hate" (at least not till after the lawyers get involved), they usually go from "love" to "I don't care anymore, I feel numb towards you".  That indifference score would be somewhere between "Somewhat Agree" and "Somewhat Disagree", and is the true 0%.

Figure 2: Weighted Survey Results

In surveys about feelings, same as in how our senses work (ie. taste, touch, sight, hearing, smell, time, etc.), we work on a logarithmic basis, not linear.  For example, decidels for sound.  Another example is when a child is made to wait for a candy, a 5 minute wait isn't 5 times as difficult as a 1 minute wait, it is perceived as about 16 times more difficult, and a 10 minute wait is perceived at about 512 times more difficult than a 1 minute wait.  Therefore there should be some weighting applied to these 6 scoring levels for satisfaction.

When we do that, we get the following data in spreadsheet format.  When we add up the weighted scores (0% is "I don't care indifference", 100% is "Strongly Agree"), we get a weighted score of just 22.65% satisfaction.

This is certainly totally different than the 73% agree that Dr. Ilvento is pushing out there.   Could that be related to the funding source of the survey, Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc., Delaware Poultry Improvement Association, the Maryland Farm Bureau, and the University of Delaware Cooperative Extension?  I should say that Dr. Ilvento is using a typical method employed by many who conduct surveys, but that doesn't make it useful, correct, or avoid mis-leading the public.

I have sent this commentary to Dr. Ilvento, and we will see what he says.

Here we are, 16 years after this survey.  Did the mega corp chicken processors like Tyson et al. listen to their chicken growers?  Has anything changed, better or worse?  The NPR radio documentary (see Blog posting The US Chicken System) dated Feb. 20, 2014 says not much has changed.  If you have some facts or commentary on the glacial rate of improvement for US chicken farmers, type in your comments below.  Everybody wants to know, and better understand.

In the meantime, we can try to better understand the struggles faced by those chicken farmers to our South.  That is why Small Flockers is not suggesting the US system for use in Canada.  We can do better than that.

If Canada blindly adopted the US system for producing chicken, we'd be going from the frying pan, right into the fire.

NP Survey Says

The National Post readers are 94.3% in favour of Small Flockers and against the oppression and tyranny by the #ChickenMafia.

On Dec. 1, 2013 the National post published a feature article on the plight of the Canadian small flock poultry farmer.  I previously Blogged about it here.

Since posting their article, the National Post has received untold Billions of people accessing this story from around the world, their website has repeatedly crashed due to the huge volume of people trying to gain on-line access to read this one article, subscriptions requests by the millions have flooded in to get home delivery of the printed version of the paper, and numerous billionaires are in a bidding war to buy the newspaper as it is now seen as a goldmine, all directly stemming from this one article.  Not really, but it sure sounded good, eh?  ;-)

However, in reality, the NP received unknown number of people reading the article, 606 of those Liked it on Facebook, and 121 bothered to comment on the story.  When someone makes a comment, they can either agree or disagree with the article, or post a comment that is neutral or off-topic (ie. not related to the story).

I read every comment, and tried to honestly determine if they were pro or con to the Small Flockers plight.  If they were pro Small Flockers, I scored it a +1.  If they were against Small Flockers cause, I scored it a -1.  If they were neutral or off-topic, I scored it a zero.

All other readers are allowed to read previous comments, and rank those comments as favorable or disfavorable to their personal views.  Somebody would have to come back again and again to rate the newly posted comments, which isn't likely to occur often, so the early comments tend to get the most eyeballs, and receive the most up/down ratings by others.  By holding your cursor over the displayed votes, you can see who (ie. their on-line nickname) voted up/down on each comment.

At some moment in time, NP closes the article to further comments (NB. appears to be closed about 2 days after initial posting).  After the closing, anybody can still rate any or all of the comments posted.

Due to the limitations on this system, the statistics to be analyzed are non-linear and skewed, but can still give an interesting perspective.  Certainly on-line readers of NP is a very special subset of the Canadian public, and may not be totally representative of the whole.  With that said, lets analyze the comments and the up/down voting on those comments.

Figure 1:  Rated comments on NP article

Figure 1 shows the raw statistics for the 121 comments posted on this NP article.  There were 57 comments that clearly supported the Small Flockers position, 60 comments that were neutral or off-topic, and 3 comments that were clearly against Small Flockers (and pro the Supply Management system as it exists today).

If we ignore the 60 neutral/off-topic comments, we have 57 comments that are pro Small Flockers, and 3 against.  That's 95% in favor of Small Flocker's position.  That's pretty well iron clad support.

When a positive comment was made in favor of Small Flockers, other readers could vote those positive comments up (ie. agreed with them), and did so 579 times; and other readers voted against them 23 times.  I assume that voting down on a comment that was in favour of Small Flockers is a vote against Small Flockers.  Similarly, voting against a negative comment that was against Small Flockers can be taken as somebody likely in favor of Small Flocker's cause.  It may not be totally true in all cases, but it's the best we can do under the circumstances.

Figure 2:  Summary statistics
for all voting on comments

Figure 2 shows the summary statistics on all up/down voting done on the 121 comments.  The average number of votes for a comment were 6.48 and a median value of 3 (ie. 50% of the comments had 3 or more votes, and 50% of the comments had fewer than 3 votes, pro or con).  Some comments had no votes whatsoever, neither pro nor con.  One comment had as many as 62 votes; obviously it struck a nerve with most people.  "SDEV" is the standard deviation (ie. a measure of variability in the voting between all comments).  The "%CV" is the coefficient of variation (ie. SDEV/AVERAGE * 100%) and gives an unbiased measure of the variability in the voting.  A %CV of 176% is huge, showing that some comments were ignored, while others were a strong magnet to votes pro or con.  In total, 778 votes were made.  This doesn't mean 778 voters were involved, as a voter could have voted as many as 121 times, voting once for every comment, if they so chose.

In Figure 3 we have the overall scores for all comments and all voting.  Adding the positive comments and the positive votes for a positive comment, we get a total of 641 vote/comments in favour of Small Flockers.  There were a total of 39 negative comments/votes.  This means that the NP readers who decided to express themselves, there is a 94.3% trend in favour of Small Flockers position, and just 5.7% who are in favour of Supply Management.

Figure 3:   Overall Scoring of Comments and Votes

Note that those commenting, and those voting pro/con on those comments have virtually the same pro/con stance on Small Flockers position (95% pro, and 94.3% pro Small Flockers).

That's pretty well overwhelmingly in favor of Small Flockers.

How long do you think it will take for the government to realize a sea-change has occurred, and the politicians trip over each other trying to get in front of the Small Flocker parade?  The Small Flocker parade is already way down the street, leaving the politicians way behind.

The Small Flocker parade is entertaining the crowd, and the crowd is loving them right back.

The #ChickenMafia is doomed.  It's only a matter of time.

Survey Says...

While Canadians want to support Canadian farmers, support for paying more for dairy and chicken is weakly affirmative.  Overall, Canadians aren't totally thrilled with Free Trade, in spite of decades of experience under various trade agreements.  Perhaps too many have lost jobs to Mexico and China, and the weak economy scares them more.

Forum Research Survey Results as reported by Canadian Business magazine
CB Magazine has a skewed interpretation, as described below

A telephone survey of 1,238 Canadians was conducted by Forum Research on May 27-28, 2013.  The results are in the graphs to the right, as reported by Canadian Business Magazine.  The caption in the graph proposes a skewed interpretation of the survey results, likely in support of their friends in the #ChickenMafia who place many ads in their magazine.

Let's analyze the data, and see if we can prove the bias of the survey and Canadian Business Magazine.

Table 1:   Raw Survey Data

While I love digging into statistics like this, most people quickly fall asleep, or their vision soon blurs.  I have therefore done the analysis for you, to make it easier.

The first step was to convert the pretty pictures to a table of numbers, as shown in the next table.

Table 2:  Adjusted survey data to re-distribute "Don't Know" respondents

Second step is to eliminate those who "Don't Know".  In surveys, it's typical to distribute these lost souls into the other categories in the same proportion as they enjoy without the Don't Knows.  That adjusted data is shown in Table 2.

Next, we need to simplify the data, reducing all the 4 degrees of agreement into one aggregate % Agreement.


Survey Like Our Senses

The senses (eg. hearing, taste, sight, touch, smell, etc.) work on a logarithmic scale, not linear.  If we extend this to emotions, then "Strongly Agree" isn't twice as much agreement as "Agree", it's likely 10 times more agreement.  We also assume that Agree and Disagree are equally separated and balanced about the point of indifference between them.  To combine all answers together, we weighted "Agree Strongly" as +100 and "Agree" as +10 and "Disagree" as -10 and "Strongly Agree" as -100.


Test Data in Table 3
To show you that this isn't a mathematical trick, Table 3 shows some dummy data as a test and example that uses this same scoring system for an assumption of 100 people surveyed with 6 questions.

Table 3: Dummy data to show proposed weighting
system is consistent and useful.

For Question #1 ("Q1"), 100 people answered and all of them said "Strongly Disagree".  Our proposed scoring system weights calculates 0.00% Agreement.  Makes sense so far.

For Q2, we have 100% "Strongly Agree", and get 100% Agreement.  OK!

For Q3, it's evenly split between all 4 answers, and our weighted answer calculate out to 50%.  OK again!

Q4 shows 100% saying "Disagree", for a weighted score of 45%.  Remember, neutrality is located in between "Agree" and "Disagree", and would be the 50% point.  That is why Q3 scores 45%.

For same reasons, Q5 with 100% answering "Agree" gets a weighted score of 55%.

In Q6, there is a heavy leaning towards Agree, each category about double the responses of the former category, but it's far from unanimous.  We calculate an 80.5% agreement.  Note that adding "Strongly Agree" responses to "Agree" responses for Q6 gets us a total of 85% of the respondents, but our %Agree score is just 80.5%.  That is the non-linear effects in the weighting system at work.

Analysis of Our Survey Data
Now that we have confirmed our proposed weighting system works, let's apply it to our real survey data, with the results in Table 4.

Table 4:  Weighted Survey Data Results

This survey is mainly about Free Trade, and whether we should protect some of our domestic industries such as chicken, dairy, telecom, banking, and airlines.  Now that we have done the preparatory work, let's see what the survey results say.

From Question #1, two thirds of Canadians support the concept of trade agreements, which I thing means they support Free Trade.

From Question #2, 81.54% want to protect Canada's dairy and poultry sectors, in spite of EU's objections that this is unfair trade barriers.  Wow!  That's the strongest response in the whole survey.  That farming sector has the Canadian public in the hip pocket of every farmer's coveralls.

However, let's look a little closer into the wording of the Q2 question, the assumption contained inside the question, and the psyche of the Canadian public.

As a parent, I have watched as my two kids fought like cats and dogs, then 5 minutes later they're having fun together.  On one occasion, they were fighting about something, then a friend of one of them stuck their nose into the argument, trying to support their friend against their sibling.  The two of them both turned simultaneously like wolverines, and attacked the friend butting in as a team of two.  To them, it was all right to attack each other, but nobody else, especially not an outsider could attack a fellow family member and get away with it.

Now let's apply that "family" scenario to the response in Question #2.  We're all Canadians, but it's the EU complaining about fellow Canadians and a Canadian industry.  Do we stand together in solidarity?  You betcha!  No wonder Q2 got such a strong response.  To me, this question is biased, and the one sided survey results show it.  The Q2 question is improperly worded.  The survey people asked a loaded question, so they got a loaded answer.  This Q2 question therefore creates propaganda fodder due to its underlying assumptions.  Hindsight and a separate pair of eyes works wonders after the fact.

For Question #3, it's a far weaker response from Canadians.  Look out banksters!  You and those cell phone companies who charge crazy cell phone bills, costing us an arm & a leg are in trouble.  No wonder the Federal Government have these two industries in their gun sights, as evidenced in the most recent Throne Speech.

For Question #4, we have the weakest answer of all 5 questions in the survey.  Only 58% of Canadians are willing to pay higher prices to protect and support the Canadian dairy and poultry industries and Supply Management ("SM") in general.  Look out SM, your Achilles' Heal is showing!  However, the wording of the question again is loaded and biased.  Note that the verb used is "would be willing", which is the conditional present form of the verb "willing", meaning it's an open hypothetical.  Time and again, people will generally agree in surveys to open hypotheticals, then choke at the subsequent moment of truth.  Many businesses lose fortunes when they launch a new product or service based on open hypotheticals, and the customers never come to buy.  I believe it's the same here.  Secondly, how many people realize they are already paying 300% more for chicken, and 38% more for dairy?  Most people are shocked when I share that factoid with them.  They knew it was more in Canada, but are totally shocked by the true magnitude of the difference.  The survey misleads people in this area, and is therefore a biased survey.  The results to that question cannot be trusted.

For Question #5, it is a generic Free Trade question, and it has the highest "Unknown" category.  For this reason alone, the answer is far less trustworthy.  Most people want to seem intelligent, involved, and aware. Answering "I don't know" is often a difficult place to go.  All surveys need to be treated with caution when the "Don't Know" gets above 10%; which is true in this case with a survey score of 22% "Don't Know".

Are Canadians Free Traders ?
I have proposed that 3 of the 5 questions are worded as pro-Free Trade (Q# 1, 3, and 5), and two are worded as against Free Trade (Q# 2, and 4).  Positive and negative wording of questions is a standard technique used in surveys, so this is good to see.

When we add all of the questions up on the Free Trade issue, we get an aggregate average of 49.37% in favour of Free Trade.  As 50% would be a neutral outcome (ie. neither for or against Free Trade), I suggest this survey outcome at 49.37% is too close to call; a hung jury.  With survey results like that, most wise politicians will stall until a clear majority appears, then the politicians will jump out in front of the trend, and lead them the last few steps.

Note that Canada got the Auto Pact in 1965 (ie. 48 years ago), and NAFTA in 1989.  Both of these trade deals had significant positive effects on Canada's economy, deepening and broadening it in most sectors.  Overall, Canada's trade with the US increased by 22% in the first 3 years of NAFTA.  In 1992, a Canadian Chamber of Commerce survey said most businesses were pleased with the results.

Not so much support for Free Trade in Canada any more.  I wonder why?  Perhaps it's the ongoing weakness in the economy and the recent job loss. Ontario was hurt the worst, and sure enough, Forum Research states that Ontario had significantly more negative outcomes in survey results.

Conclusions
Whether Canadians are in love with Free Trade, or now hate it, no Canadian likes being abused by the #ChickenMafia.

I suggest that the #ChickenMafia will redouble their propaganda and obfuscation smoke screen systems to keep Canadians in the dark about how much cheaper chicken is outside Canada.  This redoubling of effort by the #ChickenMafia will merely delay the ultimate outcome.  Once it is generally know how badly the #ChickenMafia is continually screwing the public, there will be hell to pay.

For us Small Flockers, we need to focus on communicating the consequences for Canadians caused by the continual price gouging by the #ChickenMafia and get the word out to everyone as soon as possible.  That's the Achilles' Heal of the #ChickenMafia as we learn from this survey.

Let's see in the long run who wins.  It's hard to hide the truth forever.  Eventually, we will win.  It's only a matter of time.

CFO Survey

How do you feel about the #ChickenMafia and #SupplyMgmt ?

I think it's time to take the temperature of the bath water again, and survey for or against the #ChickenMafia and #SupplyMgmt .

#SmallFlocker has been banging away on these tyrannical and oppressive chicken supply management issue for the past 8 months.  We have now passed the insignificant milestone of having over 20,000 visitors to this insignificant Blog.

Are we getting the point across that Canada's Supply Management system, and the Chicken Mafia who run it, are wrong headed, selfish, corrupt, arrogant, and self serving?


Let's see what everybody thinks so far.

In the column at the right of this Blog posting, near the top you will find the following survey.

Non-active copy of survey question.
  Functioning version of this survey is located
near the top of the right hand column
of this Blog, open until 11:59 PM on 2013/11/30

You have 5 choices available on Chicken Farmers of Ontario and the work they do.

The people who get a pay cheque from CFO, or fellow members of the Chicken Mafia could skew survey results if they stop all their selfish scheming and continuously click on this survey.  Fortunately Google's Blogger system software only permits one vote per computer.  How fast can CFO's staff get delivery on a bunch of new computers?  Perhaps this survey is a good way to keep CFO's staff and all other Chicken Mafia gangsters busy, their futile attempt to improve their public image by clicking on this survey again and again; busy work that prevents the Chicken Mafia gangsters from causing more harm to Canada and Canadians.

Before you vote, you may want to search this Blog for the keyword "CFO" (Search function is at the top of the right hand column) and refresh your memory of all the crazy antics CFO has been up to.  Be sure to take your blood pressure medication before doing this step.

If you want to leave important reasons for making the vote you did, feel free to add a comment, anonymous or  otherwise, at the end of this Blog posting.