Sylvia Donkersgoed

Generations upon generations of families have fallen in love with the Canadian chicken industry! Sylvia Donkersgoed is one example of a farmer who has kept it close to home.

"I was born and raised in the industry," explains Sylvia. Years ago, along with brothers and sisters helping out on the family's mixed farm, Sylvia found herself enjoying the work and increasingly becoming more involved in the farm, with a special interest in the chicken farming side of things.

Now, Sylvia runs her own diversified farm operation, not far from her brother's, in the southern part of Alberta. She raises roughly 50,000 birds per cycle in two large barns and participates in other, land-based farming, such as Timothy Hay, largely for the export market, as well as wheat, canola and more.

Still keeping it in the family, each of Sylvia's children has worked on the farm; her son spends time working on the operation for a few summers while her daughters fell into the more administrative side of the business.

Sylvia plays an active role in the chicken farming community, having spent the last five years on the Board of Directors of the Alberta Chicken Producers, with the last two as the Board's Chair.

"The thing we love about this industry is that its stability allows us to participate in other types of farming with less concern that our profitability will fall to a level that we can't handle," says Sylvia, "The volatility of other markets is easier to handle because we have such a strong base in the chicken industry."

Sylvia relies on both Chicken Farmers of Canada and the Alberta Chicken Producers to provide her and her fellow farmers with important messaging that can be taken to key stakeholders like MPs, consumers and other decision makers—especially surrounding this latest round of negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Decisions made there could have a serious impact on the lives of supply management farmers.

"After all," she explains, "anything that brings vulnerability to supply management creates great concern for me and reinforces the need for all producers to become engaged in the decisions that are being made on our behalf at the WTO. In fact, I wish there was more we could do to influence this process."

The future of the Canadian chicken industry, she believes, depends heavily on the outcome of the WTO negotiations. "Things could change very drastically if these negotiations don't go well for us. We could see a lot less chicken being grown here, with some barns going empty permanently."

"If supply management isn't promoted, it will represent a significant challenge, not only for future generations of chicken farmers, but for future generations in all of agriculture."

Sylvia is optimistic, though, that the Canadian chicken industry will continue its growth, as the industry evolves to produce more products highlighting chicken's health benefits, versatility and ease of preparation.

"I'm excited about the future," she says, "I think chicken will become more and more popular with consumers and remain their favourite choice at the meat counter."