Health Canada is narrowing the registration of dicamba sprayed on dicamba-resistant crops.
Bayer is a company that markets soybeans with combined resistance to dicamba and Roundup.
The new restriction bans spraying soybeans with dicamba after they are growing, rendering largely useless.
Bayer said it stands behind the safety of dicamba.
DuBreton, a Quebec-based pork processing company that serves niche markets, wants the federal government to mandate labeling for gene-edited pork.
Gene editing has been used to enhance pigs’ resistance to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory virus (PRRS) disease and other gene-editing projects are in the pipeline.
DuBreton’s offerings include organic pork. Organic standards prohibit gene editing.
“Without enforceable standards and transparent labelling, consumers cannot be certain the pork they purchase hasn’t been altered through genetic engineering,” said duBreton president Vincent Breton in a news release.
He also called on other certifying bodies, such as Humanely Raised and Raised Without Antibiotics, to make gene-editing labeling part of their standards.
This summer, the federal government completed public consultation around regulation of pigs that are resistant to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) due to gene editing.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared the pigs for use in the American food supply earlier this year, saying the edits are safe for pigs and for humans who consume pork.
However, according to a duBreton survey, 74 per cent of consumers are “concerned about gene-edited pork in their food supply and demand total transparency,” the news release said.
It’s probable that most of those surveyed don’t understand gene editing’s effect on pork production and quality.
Hog Slat, Inc. is opening a retail location in Watford, Ontario, expanding the company’s Canadian operations to better serve livestock producers throughout the region.
The family-owned company began in 1969 in Newton Grove, North Carolina ,and now serves hog and poultry farmers across North America.
A growing crisis is silently unfolding in agriculture. Farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. With mounting financial stress, that number could be on the rise this year, writes farm reporter Tyne Morgan.
The number of farmers dying by suicide is on the rise, and it could be at a rate U.S. agriculture hasn’t seen since the 1980s.
Even though statistics on suicides among farmers aren’t reliable from the 1980s because many were deemed “accidents” during that time, some estimates point to more than 1,000 farmers dying by suicide during that crisis.
“Unfortunately, it just almost seems like it’s a pandemic situation. I mean, there’s a lot of it, and it’s sad,” says Brent Foreman, a farmer in Shelby County, Mo., who knows the impacts of farmer suicides all too well.
“From an agricultural perspective, there’s a lot of stress in this industry, especially now,” Foreman says. “And somebody that’s contemplating this. I would say, we as farmers, we like to try to fix things, and we’re pretty good at it, but you can’t fix everything. If you get to a point like that, please reach out to someone, a family member, a good friend. Just please try to get some help.”
When a person loses hope, that’s when the situation turns bleak.
“Sadly, that is the end all for a lot of people,” said Jolie Foreman, executive director at Shelby County Cares.
“Hope is key. If you have hope, you can keep going. When you lose hope, it’s just a very dangerous place to be.”
In Canada, a number of farm organizations, the Canadian Association for Mental Health and rural communities have stepped up efforts to persuade stressed farmers to seek professional help.
There will be at least two new directors of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture following zone elections.
Maaike Campbell is the new director for Zone 6, representing farmers in Lambton and Middlesex counties. Together with her family, she farms near Strathroy, producing chicken and beef and growing crops. Campbell replaces Crispin Colvin, a beef and crop farmer who had represented Zone 6 on the board since 2016.
Marnie Wood has won the election for Zone 10 which is for Durham, Peterborough and Kawartha Lakes/Haliburton, She is a second generation dairy farmer in Cannington, She takes over from Steve Brackenridge who retired after nine years on the board.
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Larry Davis returns after out-voting chicken farmer Henry Lise and beef and crop farmer Steve Sickle. Davis represents Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk and is a cash crop and sheep farmer.
Greg Dietrich of Mildmay was acclaimed as Zone 2 director representing Bruce and Grey counties.
OFA president Drew Spoelstra, who farms near Binbrook growing crops, raising horses and producing beef and milk, was acclaimed as the Zone 5 representative for farmers in Halton, Hamilton/Wentworth and Niagara.
Food prices continued to rise more than overall inflation during August, increasing by 3.4 per cent.
Beef was mainly responsible for the increase, rising by 7.2 per cent.
Fresh fruit prices were down 1.1 per cent year over year, mostly driven by price declines for grapes and berries, according to Statistics Canada.
Mike Donnelly-Vanderloo has renewed optimism about white bean research now that replacements for weed specialist Peter Sikkema and plant breeder Peter Pauls are in place.
Whie beans have grown into a major export crop, mainly to Japan, led by Hensall Coop which has become one of the most profitable cooperatives in Ontario
Isabelle Aicklen, with a doctorate in plant agriculture from the University of Guelph, is now in place as the assistant professor of field crop weed management at the Ridgetown campus, conducting research similar to that of Sikkema.
Mohsen Yoosefzadeh-Najafabadi has been white bean plant breeder for about a year, carrying forward work begun by Pauls.
He said he has an interest in computational biology and is moving quickly to use artificial intelligence.
Donnelly Vanderloo, who has long had an interest in white bean research, said during a recent field day near Clinton that “we were sitting in a restaurant in Ridgetown, and we were looking at all the changes that had happened within a relatively short time. and you could just see the room was sort of deflated. The continuity of our research was in question.”
He thanked the University of Guelph for filling the research positions.
The White Bean Growers Association also contracted Blackcreek Research to work on white mould and some pesticides and dessicants.
Trials are conducted at the Huron Research Station near Centralia where the review of research was provided recently during a field day.