Lawsuit seeks antibiotic sales data

The Government Accountability Project is suing the United States Food and Drug Administration to get records on antibiotic sales for farm use.

The FDA has released only aggregate data. The lawsuit seeks information such as how much of each drug is sold, whether it was formulated for use in feed, water or injection and the animals for which the drug was intended.

The lawsuit was filed after the FDA denied an application filed under the U.S. Freedom on Information system.

By comparison, Canadian officials don’t release any of this information if they in fact gather it.

In 1985, Orville Schell wrote a book entitled Modern Meat in which he demonstrated the failure of enforcement via checks for residues in meat.

The issue then was the continued use of growth-promoting diethylstilbestrol in beef cattle after it was banned as a threat to human health.

The government found no evidence in its testing for residues in meat, yet the industry continued to use DES as if it had never been banned.

When a whistleblower informed on one of the largest feedlots, an investigation began that eventually revealed many more large-scale feedlots were continuing to use DES.

The full extent of cheating became evident when investigators obtained sales records and tracked down the buyers.

That is probably why the Government Accountability Project wants to see the sales records now.

They might reveal a pattern of use and abuse quite different from the results of sampling and testing for residues at meat-packing plants.

It's never been clear to me why enforcement officials don't demand sales records and simply track down the buyers to check for potential abuses.

Maybe they don't really want to enforce the standards. I can't think of any other good explanation. Can you?

As for why Canadian government officials are so secretive, need I explain?

OFA, CFFO gain accreditation

Guelph – The Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario have gained accreditation under the province’s stable funding system.

It means they are assured of a steady flow of revenues in the new year. In the case of the OFA, about $390,000 being held by Agricore will now be released and for the CFFO, about $44,000.

It has been a frustrating 18-month process for the two general farm organizations.

It also means the Union des cultivateurs francophone de l’Ontario will receive indirect funding via the two general farm organizations.

The situation for the Ontario Branch of the National Farmers Union will be the subject of yet another public hearing before the OMAFRA Appeal Tribunal on Friday, Dec. 14.

NFU co-ordinator Anne Slater, left, confers with
CFFO general manager Nathan Stevens
while CFFO president Lorne Small
 confers with Jason Bent, OFA's manager of research.
Add caption

Anne Slater, head of that organization, attended the third-round hearings for the OFA and CFFO here Thursday. 

They each lasted less than half an hour – a tribunal record for brevity – and the tribunal announced its decisions within 15 minutes – another tribunal speed record.

It was in sharp contrast with the 11-month wait for the original tribunal decisions after public hearings in June, 2010.

The tribunal kept raising objections surrounding membership and finally Agriculture Minister Ted McMeekin intervened to sweep away 10 of the 15 regulatory requirements for re-accreditation.

That is only a temporary fix.

OFA president Mark Wales said there will be consultations with OMAFRA to ensure that the organization is ready to meet the membership and other requirements for the next round of accreditation. 

They are normally for three years and all previous renewals in the 20-year history of the legislation have resulted in re-accreditations without this round’s tribunal concerns surfacing.

The June, 2010, hearings were chaired by Kirk Walstedt, a lawyer from Maidstone, and two others tribunal members.

The second round of hearings were chaired by Nicholas Richter and the same two tribunal members – Mary Field and Jane Sadler Richards.

This time Walstedt had only one other member with him, vice-chairman Susan Whelan, also a lawyer from Amherstburg.

Slater said the NFU will be presenting additional information at its hearing Dec. 14.

Kristopher Crawford-Dickinson, lawyer for OMAFRA, said the ministry will also be making a presentation at the NFU hearing.

He told the tribunal this time that OMAFRA believes the OFA and CFFO met all of the reduced list of requirements for accreditation and outlined a commitment both have made to provide funding to the French-language farm organization.

Neil Currie said it proved to be helpful that the tribunal’s original decision was delayed until May, 23 this year because the majority of farm registration fees had flowed through Agricorp to the farm organizations.

In the case of the OFA, about 38,000 memberships came through before May 23, leaving about 2,000 outstanding.

The Ministry of Finance changed its regulations in October so those who had not yet received their Farm Business Registrations could receive some provincial government benefits, such as a subsidy for municipal property taxes and compensation for wildlife losses.

Four charged with sheep abduction

Michael Schmidt, Montana Jones, Suzanne Atkinson and Robert Pinnell face criminal charges following an investigation into the removal of 31 sheep from an eastern Ontario farm on April 2.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says those charges include obstructing a CFIA inspector, transportation of an animal under quarantine, and conspiracy to defraud the public service.

Glencolton Farms, a co-op operated by Schmidt and Robert Pinnell, was raided on Aug. 2 by the CFIA in connection with the Shropshire sheep taken from a federally-quarantined farm in Northumberland County.

Michael Schmidt

Those sheep had been quarantined over concerns they had scrapie.

Schmidt has denied having anything to do with their removal. He has been in trouble with the law over the marketing of raw milk.

He also quit as a director of the Ontario branch of the National Farmers Union and was one of several former executives who wrote to the Appeal Tribunal with concerns about the NFU operations.

He is a founding member of the newest general farm organization, Progressive Farmers Association.

Atkinson is a freelance reporter for Ontario Farmer.

May 23 COOL deadline

The United States faces a May 23 deadline to change its Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) legislation to comply with World Trade Organization rules of trade.

The changes required will boost prices for Canadian cattle and hogs shipped to packing plants in the United States.

They have been depressed since the U.S. implemented mandatory COOL regulations in 2008, costing Canadian livestock farmers millions. They had to hire lawyers and consultants to bring the U.S. to justice before the World Trade Organization.

Trade Minister Ed Fast and Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz say they expect the U.S. will comply by the May 23 deadline. If the U.S. does not comply, it will face penalties that will reflect Canada’s choosing, such as Canadian tariffs on selected U.S. products.

Mexico joined with Canada in challenging the U.S. COOL regulations.

The two Canadian politicians issued a news release saying “removing onerous labeling measures, and the unfair, unnecessary costs that go with them, will improve competitiveness, boost growth, and help strengthen the prosperity of Canadian and American producers alike.”

Antibiotic resistance passes to soils

Animal antibiotic resistance passes in their urine to soil and then gives rise to antibiotic resistance among people, claims a new study from Washington State University.

They studied cephalosporin which contributes to antibiotic resistance in humans.

Seven months ago, the United States Food and Drug Administration curbed the use of the drug by issuing new rules on extra-label prescriptions for cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys.

Cephalosporins came to market in 1964.

Although bacterial resistance to cephalosporins has long been studied, and researchers knew it doesn’t develop in an animal’s gut, they didn’t know how it spread until the researchers at Washington State University decided to examine soils.

“Even short-term persistence in soil provides [an] advantage to resistant E. coli populations, resulting in significantly prolonged persistence of these bacteria in the soil,” the researchers say in this month’s issue of the journal PLOS ONE.

They found that — especially in warm weather — a variety of bacteria may develop resistance within 24 hours, including E. coli and salmonella. Newer cephalosporins on the market are used to treat salmonella and shigella, especially in children.

In animal agriculture, cephalosporins are used to treat bacterial pneumonia in pigs and cattle and to control early mortality in chicks and turkey poults. The FDA had singled out the use of ceftiofur in dairy cattle as a concern, saying dairy farmers often fail to keep required records.

In the Washington State study, the researchers suggest that on-farm interventions —such as bioremediation, the addition of adsorption agents or improved waste management — may help stem the rise of antibiotic resistance.

Saputo makes$1.45-billion purchase

Saputo Inc. is buying Morningstar Foods LLC for $1.45 billion.

Morningstar is a division of Dean Foods, the largest dairy business in the United States. Saputo is the largest dairy business in Canada and has been investing in the U.S., Argentina and Europe.

This deal makes Saputo number two in the U.S.

Morningstar produces both dairy and non-dairy products, such as creams, ice cream mixes, whipping cream, aerosol whipped toppings, iced coffee, half and half, sour cream and cottage cheese.

Saputo’s mainstay is cheeses, but it also owns fluid milk dairies, Dare Foods of Kitchener and Vachon and Joe Louis snack cakes.

This is the biggest deal in the family-controlled company history. The previous largest deal was the purchase in 2001 of Dairyland, the dominant dairy business in Western Canada.

This deal will push annual revenues to about $8.6 billion compared with $485 millin in 1997.

There are persistent rumours, and a book, that claim founder Lino Saputo did business with the Mafia.

                           

Milk supply management needs reforms

 The George Morris Centre says Canada’s supply management system for milk needs some big reforms, else it’s heading into crisis issues.

The centre’s third in a series of reports on the dairy industry is particularly critical of provincial measures to ration milk among processing companies.

It says barriers to inter-provincial trade combined with rigid allocation policies makes it difficult for processors to adjust to the exciting innovations occurring in global markets where new products and technology are expanding markets.

Canadian processors are limited in their ambitions to develop larger facilities that could finance high-cost adoption of new technologies and their difficulty in obtaining more milk at a provincial level makes them hesitant to try making new products that would require a lot of milk under existing marketing categories.

Only relatively small volumes are available to test-market new products.

Another issue is provincial caps on quota prices which limits farmers’ opportunities to buy quota to take advantage of economies and technologies that depend on greater production.

Another major issue is slow growth in sales. Fluid milk sales have only increased from 27.93 million kilograms (measured in butterfat content) in 1998-99 to 29.13 million kilograms in 2011-12, indicating population has increased by more than fluid milk sales. This is “exceptionally slow growth,” says the George Morris Centre report.

Cheese, butter and skim milk powder sales are all relatively flat; yogourt has “shown steady growth”.

While Canada protects the dairy industry with tariffs of, for example, 245 per cent for cheese, 313 per cent for butter and 295 per cent for whole milk, imports increased by 50 per cent between 2004 and 2009.

Exports are capped by trade rules at 91 million kilograms.

Canada’s tariffs enable farmers to price milk to reflect production costs and a return on their labour and investments, and that amounts to a government “subsidy” of half the price dairy farmers are paid for milk, according to analyses by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development).

That is by far the greatest degree of support for any Canadian farm commodity; it is also at risk of declining, perhaps sharply, as a result of trading negotiations underway with the European Community, the United States and Pacific nations involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks and others.

The “imminent threat of imports” means Canadians ought to be implementing innovations and technologies that will improve their competitive position.

The George Morris Centre says the leaders of Canada’s dairy industry are well aware of the issues, but so far they have only managed to implement “marginal changes”.

The system can take more shocks that the leaders seem to appreciate, the report says, reminding them that there was an 18 per cent decrease in market-sharing quota in 1976.

The authors of the report are Al Mussell, Bob Seguin and Janalee Sweetland.