Canada’s wheat exports increase

 

Canada’s wheat exports are ahead of last year and trending towards a record, according to one Canadian market analyst.

 

The world’s top seven wheat-exporting countries have also had record harvests.

They are looking to China which they hope will import more wheat and feed grains because of poor quality corn and spring wheat harvests there.

Market analyst Chuck Penner said If China were to start buying corn and wheat again in a bigger way, that changes the global dynamic to quite a large degrees.

Penner works for Leftfield Commodity Research and made his comments during a meeting of the Canaryseed Development Commission of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

He said Canadian wheat exports might set a record of 24 million tonnes this crop year.

A big barley harvest is displacing Canadian imports of U.S. corn and is fuelling exports because Canadian barley prices are more competitive with France, Ukraine, Argentina and Australia, he said.

Prices for some grains are under downward pressure, he said, including feed wheat, durum and oats due to quality issues with those crops.

Canadian farmers produced 7.1 million tonnes of durum, the largest crop since 2016-17.

Mexico investigating pork imports

Mexico has launched an investigation into whether pork imports have been unfairly subsidized.

The United States is the chief target and the complaints filed by Mexico’s largest hog producers points to a number of subsidies, including ones during COVID-19, the one to encourage more meat-packing competitors and subsidies for corn and soybeans.

United States President Donald Trump recently announced $12 billion in farm subsidies to compensate for the impacts from the tariff wars he started.

 Mexico Business News said the farmers who called for the investigation account for 64 per cent of the nation’s pork production.

They Mexican allege that U.S. exports of pork leg and shoulder were, because of federal and state subsidies, guilty of price discrimination and illegal subsidies in 2024, and that such practices damaged the Mexican pork industry.

The U.S. exported more than 92 million pounds of pork products to Mexico last year; it was the chief export market.

Canada ought to launch its own investigations into unfair U.S. farm subsidies.

Fish farmers want into Agriculture Canada

Canada’s fish farmers want out from under Fisheries and Oceans Canada and into Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC).

Tim Kennedy president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance said efforts are underway to have aquaculture defined as a bona fide farming enterprise and brought under the umbrella of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC).

As well as better promotion the association’s members would benefit from agriculture’s risk management and safety net programs, he said.

Aquaculture needs a department to champion and promote its cause as a viable agricultural enterprise,” he said in a recent speech in Calgary.

Canada could become a world leader in farmed fish and seafood, he said.

Yet a ban on open-net salmon farming along the British Columbia coast is coming into effect in 2029 and that whole approach to fish farming is under public attack, mainly because of concerns about spreading diseases.

Kennedy argued that penned fish farming is safe.

It is also important to indigrnous communities along Canada’s coasts, he said with backing from Kallie Woo, president and chief executive officer or the National Circle for Indigenous Agriculture and Food.

Kennedy said Canada has far more coastlines than Norway, which is the world’s leader in farmed salmon production.

Canada’s aquaculture industry peaked in 2018 at 200,000 tonnes of fish and seafood products. However, with the two salmon farms closed in B.C. in the Broughton Archipelago and Discovery Island in British Columbia and production declined by about 40 per cent.

In 2023, total aquaculture production dropped to 145,000 tonnes (including farmed fish and shellfish). Of that total, about 80,000 tonnes was farmed salmon.

Kennedy expects the 2024 production numbers to further drop to about 130,000 tonnes.

Public consultation opens on trade deals

 

The federal government is inviting public reaction to four potential trade deals with India, Thailand, the United Arab Emerates and the Mercosur bloc of nations.

The Mercosur bloc is Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Venezuela was kicked out.

The comment period is open to Jan. 26.

Europe has also negotiated a deal with Mercosur, but it has strong opposition from farmers, especially in France.

They insist that any imports must meet European production standards.

New ways to counter Colorado potato beetles

New ideas are being explored to control Colorado potato beetles which defy pesticides by multiplying resistant strains as fast as new products hit the market.

Dr. Rebecca Hallett of the University of Guelph is working with two sets of students, one at Guelph, the other at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, with beetle traps and with pheromones (scents) that attract their natural enemies or lure Colorado potato beetles out of potato fields.

One set of pheremones attracts bugs out, the other lures them in.

The pheremones could be specific to parasitic enemies such as pink lady beetles and spinned soldier bugs.

Or plants such as sweet alyssum that are attractive to the parasites could be planted around potato fields.

Biological controls are increasingly seen as a growing part of integrated pest management, Hallett said.

Spuds face challenges

Consumers worried about their weight and new federal packaging regulations are hitting Ontario potato growers.

The overall Ontario crop this year was reasonably good, but some farms were hit by drought.

But potato demand is declining, Victoria Strong told the annual meeting of the Ontario Potato Marketing Board. She is general manager of United Potato Growers of Canada.

She said consumers who are taking pills such as Ozempic to control diabetes and help them lose weight are impacting potato sales.

And the new front-of-the-package labels will include a notice if sodium, saturated fats and sugars are high.

As with Ozempic takers, the immediate impact will be on snacks such as potato chips, but Strong said there has also been spillover into demand for fresh potatoes.

There are a lot of challenges right now, but there are a lot of opportunities, she said. Both the industry and customers are reacting, she said.

For example, in the U.S. packers shifted down to five-pound bags and then went further to three smaller sizes.

She said in Ontario the chip, fresh market and seed potato industries remain robust, but the harvest was large. Buy Canadian sentiment began strong in April, but is waning.

Antimicrobial use increased

After years of reductions, last year antimicrobial use on farms in the United States increased by 16 per cent.

That’s worrisome to health professionals because widespread use of microbials encourages the increase of bacteria that are resistant to antimicrobials.

Among those bacteria are ones that cause serious infections and illnesses in people.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine recently published data provided by drug companies which must report their sales volumes to the government.

Sales had been declining since 2017 after hitting a peak in 2015. Last year’s sales were 27 per cent below that peak.