Ground beef, hamburger and beef fat sold at Pistachios Quality Meats & Groceries, 1695 Wonderland Rd. N, London, are under recall because it might be contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7 food-poisoning bacteria.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said no illnesses have been reported as linked to these products.
Jennifer Hayes has been appointed to a second four-year term as chair of the Canadian Dairy Commission, one of the most powerful positions in Canada’s dairy industry.
The commission sits on top of national milk supply management, dictates prices for milk processed into dairy products and keeps watch on dairy imports and exports.
She began with the Canadian Dairy Commission as a commissioner in 2017 and was elevated to chair in December, 2021..
Hayes is a third-generation beef and dairy farmer at PineCrest Farms in Shigawake, Quebec.
She co-owns the farm with her father and uncle.
She is a Master of Business graduate from Concordia University, is actively engaged in rural development initiatives within her region and gained governance experience through her work with L’Union des Producteurs Agricoles.
Sprinkling two grams of spray-dried plasma (SDP) on top of every ration a hog eats is an effective way to counter bacterial diseases, according to a recent scientific trial to determine the effctivenesss of the practice common in Brazil.
The 998-day trial was conducted on 1,526 pigs on a finishing ration.
It reduced bacterial diseases by 77 per cent.
Metric | Control | SDP (2g/d) | Improvement | |
Mortality per pen (number) | 1.08 | 0.25 | -77% | |
Mortality (%) | 3.39 | 0.78 | -77% | |
Tulathromycin injections/pen | 0.75 | 0.13 | -83% | |
Total medications/pen | 1.70 | 1.11 | -35% |
The United Kingdom has refused to budge on two non-tariff trade barriers it uses to keep Canadian beef out while its beef sales to Canada soar.
The Canadian Cattle Association is complaining to Ottawa, saying it should pressure the United Kingdom by keeping it out of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement on trade.
The Canadian Cattle Association told Ottawa said the United Kingdom should first allow Canadian beef into its market based on science that reports that using a peroxyacetic acid wash on carcasses to eliminate E. coli food-poisoning bacteria is safe and effective and that hormone additives that improve beef production efficiency and carcass quality are safe.
The National Cattle Feeders’ Association, the Canadian Pork Council and the Canadian Meat Council support the Cattle Association lobby.
“In July 2023, the Government of Canada announced the accession of the U.K. to the CPTPP (Comprehensive Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) agreement,” the CCA’s recent release reads. “CCA, our provincial members, and beef producers across the country urged Canada to ‘say no to a bad deal.’
“Since then, the U.K. has not made any effort to address the non-tariff barriers that are keeping Canadian beef out of the U.K. market. At the same time, U.K. beef imports into the Canadian market have increased from $16.6 million in 2023 to $42.5 million in 2024.”
“In addition, the U.K. refuses to recognize full systems approval for our meat hygiene system, which is recognized as world class,” the association said.
Irfan Memon has lost seven franchises for Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen restaurants in the Toronto area and another seven have been shut down in a receivership.
Memon employees raised allegations of unpaid wages leading to receivership with debts of about $10.8-million.
Memon, is also a major defendant in a lawsuit filed in May against Popeyes, its parent company Restaurant Brands International Inc. and Toronto-area franchisees.
Companies controlled by Memon operated seven out of 27 locations listed in that lawsuit, in which a former poultry supplier to Popeyes, ADP Direct Poultry Ltd., accused the restaurants of buying “unsafe” meat from an unauthorized supplier.
The allegations have not been tested in court, and Restaurant Brands has said, most recently in July, that it found no evidence of those claims.
Despite that disclaimer, shortly after ADP’s lawsuit was filed, Restaurant Brands raised questions with Mr. Memon’s companies about where his restaurants were buying their meat.
In a notice of termination of their franchise agreement, sent on Sept. 18, Popeyes stated that it had advised Memon’s companies in June of “significant discrepancies” between the quantity of chicken the restaurants were buying from approved suppliers and the quantity of chicken that they sold.
The notice said the franchisee had not provided “sufficient or satisfactory” explanation of those discrepancies.
United States Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins unveiled the government’s promised and Trump-touted plan to rebuild the beef industry, but ranchers and packers were far from thrilled by the modest proposals.
“At USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) we are protecting our beef industry and incentivizing new ranchers to take up the noble vocation of ranching,” Rollins said.
“Today, USDA will immediately expedite deregulatory reforms, boost processing capacity, including getting more locally raised beef into schools, and working across the government to fix longstanding common-sense barriers for ranchers like outdated grazing restrictions.”
For the third prong — “Building Demand Alongside Domestic Supply” — the document states only that school nutrition programs will be encouraged to use locally grown foods including beef, and the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) will be released by Dec. 31.
For packers, the big-ticket promise is no overtime for meat inspectors staffing relatively small packing plants.
For deregulation, the main promise relates to leases on government lands, but the details will come in mid-November.
And Brooke said her officials will set up meetings to listen to farmers and ranchers concerns and ideas.
The U.S. beef herd has hit an historic low, cattle prices set records, packers are losing money and retail beef prices are high.
To encourage young people to take up ranching, Brooke announced that USDA’s Risk Management Agency is widening the availability of premium subsidies to newer ranchers.
But the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said it cannot support the Trump administration as long as it relaxes import controls on beef from Argentina.
United States President Donald Trump is getting pushback from his own party politicians from leading beef-ranching states over his plans to allow more beef from Argentina into the country.
And some are suggesting it would be better to provide incentives to cull dairy cows for produced-in-the-United States beef, noting it would also reduce excess milk production.
Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska, who is a rancher, said she has voiced her “deep concerns” to the White House.
“Bottom line: if the goal is addressing beef prices at the grocery store, this isn’t the way. Right now, government intervention in the beef market will hurt our cattle ranchers,” she said in a statement.
“The U.S. has safe, reliable beef, and it is the one bright spot in our struggling ag economy. Nebraska’s ranchers cannot afford to have the rug pulled out from under them when they’re just getting ahead or simply breaking even,” she said.
Senator Paul Rand from Kentucky noted that Trump is imposing many tariffs to protect American businesses and opening the door to more beef from Argentina runs counter to Trump’s key policy.
Manitoba Pork is adding sustainability to its standards for producers.
There are standards for animal care, community well-being, collaborative growth, economic resilience and environmental stewardship.
Farmers must be good stewards of the land, which means growing crops, raising livestock and moving what they’ve grown and raised to market sustainably, saide Manitoba Pork in a document announcing the new protocols.
The Sustainability Framework also focuses on the role Manitoba Pork plays in supporting hog farmers identify potential targets, explaining other outside impacts on producers and identifying areas where collaboration with partners is essential.
The program will also focus on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are lower as a result increased efficiencies on hog farms that have included reduced water and energy use and lower carbon emissions, Manitoba Pork said.
A Canadian online training program for people hired to work on hog farms has gained international attention because it is posted on swineweb, a site for the global pork industry.
The PigLEARN platform, developed by the Canadian Pork Council , provides a centralized system to deliver structured training, certify learning progress, and document compliance across a workforce.
PigLEARN was designed to meet the growing need for standardized onboarding, biosecurity preparedness, and continuous education across swine production systems. The platform currently includes 86 industry-developed training modules, with an additional 10 modules soon to be added.
According to Mark Fynn, training resources coordinator with the pork council, PigLEARN functions as a full learning management system tailored specifically to the swine industry. It enables employees to log in, access modules, and complete training online, while managers can assign modules, schedule completion timelines, and track progress in real time.
Key training areas include:
· Barn entry and biosecurity protocols
· Pig handling and welfare
· Group sow housing management
· Preparing pigs for transport
· Sow barn management and care best practices
Fynn said “this isn’t just about compliance – it’s about building confidence, improving animal care, and elevating overall barn performance.”
It is flexible enough to be useful to any size of farm.
Managers are able to create user groups by barn or role, tp assign training schedules, track completion records and demonstrate compliance for audits or certification programs
It helps train newcomers, improves employee retention, and ensures consistent training delivery across multiple sites or barns.
The platform will be showcased during the upcoming Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium, November 4–5 in Saskatoon, where producers will have the opportunity to see it in action and explore implementation strategies.
Provincial marketing boards have information on how to get the program.
Food prices rose by four per cent in September, continuing to increase more than the general inflation rate since spring.
The overall inflation rate was 2.4 per cent, exceeding the Bank of Canada goal of two per cent.
The main food price increases were fresh vegetables, processed foods with lots of sugar, fresh and frozen beef and coffee.
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Emily Crocco, chair of the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal, has tossed a fine levied against Mid Peninsula Carriers Inc., a sister company of Moonfleet Poultry Inc. of Fergus, over trucking chickens to a packing plant.
It was an official from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs who investigated, although the alleged violations were of the federal government’s Health of Animals Regulations.
Inspector Vadym Turchenko said dead and dying birds reported by Abate Rabbit Packers included ones at the bottom level of the truck and were wet because it rained all night.
But weather data entered as evidence indicated there was no rain. And Turchenko arrived at the plant hours after the chickens had been unloaded and could not know whether they were in crates at the bottom of the truck.
Speculation about how they might have got wet was just that – speculation.
It was the third tribunal win in as many days for Moonfleet.
Zecoya Inc. of Toronto had a fine of $10,000 levied by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reduced to $8,000 by the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal.
The agency said the company misled or obstructed an agency inspector who was investigating the importation and sale of pesticides, in this case mosquito repellent.
The company paid for three of four violations.
Ahmad Saad testified that there was never any intention to provide false information or mislead the inspector, but it was a misunderstanding of the inspector’s requests combined with a lack of resources to retrieve all the requested information.
Geneviève Parent, who conducted the hearing, said she found Saad’s testimony credible.
A new global collaboration between dsm-firmenich Animal Nutrition & Health and Bayer is set to reshape how environmental impact is measured across the animal protein value chain.
It has major implications for pork producers, their leaders say, because they are increasingly facing sustainability expectations from processors, retailers, and global export markets. Feed is the single largest contributor to a pig’s carbon footprint.
By integrating Bayer’s primary crop life cycle assessment data with dsm-firmenich’s Sustell™ platform — a leading environmental footprinting solution for livestock — this partnership aims to accurately track emissions from the field all the way to the pork processing plant.
Farmers will be able to show meat packers and retailers what their environmental impact is, rather than relying on estimates, and that will improve their bargaining power.
They will also learn how they can reduce emissions by adjusting feed rations and management practices.
While sustainability has often been seen as a regulatory burden, this partnership positions environmental footprinting as a business opportunity. Accurate data can unlock new revenue streams, sustainability premiums, and access to preferred supplier programs.
According to dsm-firmenich, the Sustell™ system helps producers pinpoint where improvements generate the greatest return — whether through enhanced feed efficiency, manure management, or carbon-smart ingredient sourcing.
Jasmine Entz has the tallest Holstein in the world at her farm near Vulcan, Alta.
Beef is eight yeara old, is still growing and was recently declared by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the tallest living steer.
Entz been looking for an animal to ride and with his intelligence and gentle demeanour, this little black-headed fellow seemed like a perfect fit, she said.
He stayed at the dairy until he was weaned, then she brought him home to her hobby farm, to join her herd of 50 miniature goats.
Beef is actually now 6-foot-6 at the shoulder, having grown an inch since he set the record. At eight years old, he’s also still growing and Entz doesn’t know when he’ll stop.
Agri Stats has agreed to change its reporting of labour rates in the poultry-processing industry in a settlement of a sweeping lawsuit that saw the packers pay about $400 million.
The proposed class action settlement, filed Friday in federal court in Baltimore, requires judicial approval.
While Indiana-based Agri Stats will not contribute to the $400 million settlement fund previously paid by Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, and Sanderson Farms, the company has agreed to change its reporting practices in ways plaintiffs say will protect poultry workers.
Three Minnesota turkey farms lost a combined 183,400 birds this week to highly pathogenic avian influenza.
.The commercial turkey industry has lost nearly 1.3 million birds since late August, mostly in a swath of the Upper Midwest from the Dakotas to Michigan.
The flocks struck this week were in central Minnesota which has already lost four large turkey flocks this month.
A poultry flock of 5,900 birds in Lancaster County, Pa., became the first one in that state.
There have been outbreaks in 18 states since Aug. 27. Close to 40 commercial farm sites have been hit, with around 20 additional backyard flocks giving indicators of the virus’ presence.
A dairy herd in Idaho was confirmed positive for H5N1, according to APHIS this week.
Canada has lost more than 14 million birds to the virus.
There have been 15 new outbreaks this month, most of them on the Prairies.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has suspended the licence of Fox Hill Cheese House Limited in Port Williams, Nova Scotia.
It said the company did no comply with food-safety regulations.
It also said there was E. coli in the raw milk the company used to make cheeses.
United States President Donald Trump said Thursday that his administration has a plan to lower record beef prices and implementing it is imminent.
He also claimed that supermarket prices have fallen, but government data contradicts that. Has he ever lied before?
“We are working on beef, and I think we have a deal on beef that’s going to bring (down) the price of beef,” Trump said.
“That would be the one product that we would say is a little bit higher than we want it, maybe higher than we want it, and that’s going to be coming down pretty soon too,” he said during a White House event on in vitro fertilization.
Maison Gabriel Coulet is recalling its La Cave Roquefort cheese because testing by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency found Listeria monocytogenes food-poisoning bacteria in the cheese.
It has no reports of any consumers of the cheese falling ill.
Moonfleet Poultry Inc. of Fergus has logged the second win in two days of separate hearings over proposed Canadian Food Inspection Agency fines for abusing chickens.
Tribunal member Geneviève Parent heard testimony that 5,450 chickens loaded into 180 crates in January of last year were healthy and dry when loaded and were in fine condition when they arrived at Riverview Poultry in Smithville.
She dismissed CFIA’s charges against Moonfleet which therefore avoids a proposed fine of $13,000.
Charges against Moonfleet involving chickens that died en route to a processing plant, also in January, were similarly dismissed the previous day of tribunal hearings.
Alltech launched Mycosorb A+ Evo and Mycosorb Evo, the next generation in its Mycosorb range of mycotoxin neutralizers.
The company called them “a significan evolution” in the technology.
The Mycosorb Evo range delivers enhanced mycotoxin-binding efficacy and broader-spectrum coverage, Alltech said. T
They have been developed and tested to provide increased protection against toxins such as deoxynivalenol (DON), fusaric acid (FA) and penicillium-derived toxins, among other frequently occurring mycotoxins in livestock feed, the company said.
Ontario had 10 cases of rabies in bats in September and 29 in August, reports the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
A total of 158 samples were submitted for analysis in September and 467 in August.
So far this year there have been 230 cases of rabid bats or animals in Canada.
United States President Donald Trump says he may end some trade relationships with China in light of the trading partner’s refusal to buy soybeans.
“We are considering terminating business with China having to do with cooking oil and other elements of trade as retribution,” he wrote in a Truth Social post.
“As an example, we can easily produce cooking oil ourselves, we don’t need to purchase it from China,” the post added.
China is the world’s largest importer of soybeans, but recently cut its purchase of U.S. soybeans after the imposition of 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese-made goods on Nov. 1 or sooner.
In the face of a review of North American trade by the Office of United States Trade representative, Florian Possberg, a partner with Polar Pork Farms, is emphasizing the importance of maintaining open, two-way agricultural trade.
The review began in September and is to take 45 days.
Possberg said a lot of Canadian hogs, cattle and grains move to the United States and two-way trade in agriculture has benefitted both counties and needs to be protected.
Noting that some nations pay tariffs as high as 15 percent to trade with the U.S., he said that that would make it nearly impossible for North American producers to stay competitive.
Maintaining open trade, he said, is vital for both sides of the border — ensuring the flow of livestock, feed, and finished products that underpin the shared success of the North American agricultural economy.
He also acknowledged one potential area of concern: the ongoing tension around dairy trade access, an issue highlighted by former President Trump. However, Possberg hopes this won’t lead to broader negative impacts on agricultural trade.
Manitoba has asked the International Joint Commission to rule against proposals to develop two large dairy farms in North Dakota.
Manitoba’s Environment Ministry has formally raised concerns that nutrient runoff from the farms for 40,000 cows could severely impact the health of Lake Winnipeg and the Red River watershed.
It cited existing data showing that phosphorus and nitrogen levels are already excessively high at the international border.
Despite the role of the International Joint Commission, the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality has already granted the necessary permits, asserting that their regulations prohibit surface-water discharges and that continuous oversight of the facilities will be maintained.
Moonfleet Poultry Inc. of Fergus has won at a hearing before the Canada Agricultural Appeal Tribunal.
The issue is the welfare of 9,900 chickens transported to a processing plant.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency filed the appeal to the tribunal because it wanted its discipline on Moonfleet Poultry Inc. to proceed and result in a fine.
There was no dispute over the facts that 596 of the 9,900 chickens were dead on arrival at the processing plant.
But there was a difference of opinion over whether Moonfleet loaded the birds into acceptable crates because there were holes through which chickens could stick out their heads and legs during transport.
The chickens were tightly packed and likely over-heated and were trying to cool down, according to testimony by veterinarians for the CFIA and Moonfleet.
The tribunal ruled that the crates met animal welfare standards and ruled that the CFIA notice of violation be cancelled.
They are among 462 recommendations from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. The committee presents its reports in advance of federal government budgets.
Pierre Gilbert has issued a report on the recommendations, calling for churches and anti-abortion organizations to wake up and make their voices heard.
He said $16.5 billion worth of donations per year are at issue.
The provinces also provide tax benefits by exempting places of worship from municipal property taxes.
The federal charitable status designation used under the Income Tax Act applies to organizations that fall under one of the following categories:
- Relief of poverty
- Advancement of education
- Advancement of religion
- Other purposes benefiting the community which includes activities such as health care, environmental concerns, and community development.
The charitable status for churches in Canada originates in English common law, which Canada inherited as part of its colonial past.
“Advancement of religion” was formally recognized as a charitable purpose in England’s Statute of Charitable Uses of 1601, enacted under Queen Elizabeth I.
The Statute defined and regulated charitable activities, including poverty relief, education, religion, and other public benefits.
Sixteen have been hospitaliized.
Quebec is hardest hit with 66 sick people and Ontario is second with 27.
The most recent recalls are baclava cheesecake and baclava, both sold at Fig and Greta at Collingwood, Halva-pistachio sold at Parallel Greary Ltd. in Toronto, Pistachio Matcha spread and sour cherries and pistachios covered in chocolate.
The contaminated pistachios are from Iran.
Several years ago a friend gave us pistachios he brought back from Iran; they were infested with worms.
A dairy farmer in the Clifford area has been fined $55,000 for operating an unlicenced dairy processing plant.
He was not in the courtroom for his trial.
When the victim surcharge is added, his total fine comes to $68,750.
He is on two years probation and has been ordered to comply with the Ontario Milk Act.
The Canadian Agricultural Review Tribunal has set aside a $11,000 fine against Stirling Farms of Gowanstown, Ont., that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency levied for loading a veal calf unfit for transport.
The tribunal found testimony by James Stirling and three witnesses was forthright and believable; they testified the calf was not lame when loaded.
Veterinarians agreed the calf had chronic osteoarthritis which was aggravated by transportation.
The fine was unusually high because Stirling Farms had been fined twice in the previous five years.
More than a million turkeys have been euthanized after outbreaks of highly-pathogenic avian influenza in the United States. They won't make it to Thanksgiving dinner tables.
And the flu has also claimed nearly two million hens in a flock in Oregon.
In Canada, there have been recent outbreaks in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and on two farms in Wellington County, Ont.
The total turkeys felled since the first confirmed turkey farm outbreak in late August in Faulk County, S.D., is now 1,090,700 from 26 farms in six states, according to the federal agriculture department.
The last seven weeks have seen confirmed cases across the country from 33 commercial poultry farms and 17 backyard flocks since Aug. 27 — 50 flocks in 44 days — following only a handful of isolated cases nationwide in the previous 90 days.
The renewed surge of HPAI coincides with autumn wild bird migrations.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has declared two outbreaks of avian influenza in Wellington County and has established a quarantine zone restricting poultry-industry traffic in an out of the zone.
There have been six outbreaks this month, one in Quebec, one in Saskatchewan and three in Alberta.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has unveiled a list of regulatory changes that make things easier for farmers.
“This package of regulatory changes is about building a regulatory environment that reflects and responds to the realities of today’s agriculture sector,” said federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald
The fruit and vegetable industry will no longer need to grade produce going into further processing.
Nor will they need to apply prescriptive labels.
There will be a reduction of traceability labelling requirements for hatching eggs and chicks to align with current industry practices.
The poultry industry will need to test hatching egg imports from the United States for Salmonella enteritidis.
Livestock import rules will be aligned with international standards or new science.
The import requirements for veal will be revised to provide increased flexibility.
Wheat yields and quality excellent this year, reported the Great Lakes Yield Enhancement Network (YEN).
Wayne Metzger of Grey County had the second=highest yield at 170.1 bushels per acre.
The highest was 182,6 bushels at the Michigan farm of Nick Suwyn who also had the top yield last year.
Grain Farmers of Ontario is estimating yields will average about 100 bushels an acre this year and said there was very little DON, a fungus that produces a toxin especially worrisome for pregnant sows.