An employee on a dairy farm in Colorado is the fifth person in the United States to contract highly-pathogenic avian influenza.
The first person who tested positive for highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu in the U.S. worked on a poultry farm in Colorado. That was in 2022.
One dairy worker in Texas and two in Michigan contracted the virus this spring.
All four cases were mild.
Canada’s federal politicians may soon have to decide if they want to make a grocery industry code of practice mandatory because there are holdouts – Walmart and Costco and Loblaws, the largest in Canada, saying it will only support a code if all competitors agree.
Australian Dairy Farmers president Ben Bennett said “a mandatory code promises significant benefits for dairy farmers by ensuring fairer trading practices and enhancing protections within grocery supply chains.
“This shift from a voluntary to a mandatory code ensures that all major supermarkets must adhere to the code, creating a level playing field for all suppliers.”
“Additionally, it is crucial that the government gets the interaction between the strengthened Food and Grocery Code of Conduct and the existing Mandatory Dairy Code of Conduct right,” he said.
“These protections will help dairy farmers report unfair practices without fear of retribution, promoting a more transparent and equitable market environment.
“The combined effect of these codes will help enhance market transparency, ensuring dairy farmers receive fair treatment and fostering trust between suppliers, wholesalers and retailers,” he said.
Canadian dairy farmers are free from threats by the big supermarkets because they have supply management marketing boards, but the same is not true for other farmers, and in particular those producing fresh fruits and vegetables.
Supermarket pressures on them prompted a judicial inquiry in Ontario in the 1970s, led by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.
Nothing came of it.
Brendan Byrne of Essex County has been appointed to a two-year term on the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission.
The commission oversees marketing boards.
He has been chairman of Grain Farmers of Ontario marketing board. He farms about 1,110 acres of wheat, corn and soybeans.
Agropur dairy processing company has confirmed a significant data breach, exposing customer information.
BleepingComputer said the hack was confined to part of Agropur's shared online directory, leaving its transactional systems unaffected.
In a statement, Agropur emphasized that the continuity of its operations was not disrupted by the breach.
“After detecting the issue, we immediately launched an investigation and took steps to address the incident, including the implementation of corrective measures to mitigate the impact. To avoid prejudicing the investigation, we will not make further comment at this time,” the company said.
Agropur is based in Quebec, is a co-operative owned by dairy farmers and has significant processing plants in Ontario and the United States.
Key information regarding the breach remains unknown, including the identity of the attackers, the method of the attack, and the specific type of data accessed. It is also unclear whether the data was stolen, if an infostealer was employed, or if the attackers are demanding a ransom.
Federal and state public health officials say contact with backyard poultry has resulted in nearly 200 cases of Salmonella food poisoning is in 38 states.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the outbreaks involved seven strains of Salmonella infections.
The illnesses began Feb. 18 and were recorded through May 30, with 50 of the 136 people for which information was available being hospitalization, CDC said in a news release.
Public health officials collected different types of information from people who became sick during the outbreak, including age, ethnicity, race and other data, including the types of animals they may have come into contact with before they became sick.
No deaths from the outbreaks have been reported, CDC said.
The agency believes the actual number of people sickened by Salmonella is likely much higher than the current reported numbers, mostly because many people recover without seeking medical care and are not tested for Salmonella at all.
Recent illnesses also may not have been reported so far because it usually takes up to four weeks to determine whether a sick individual is part of a larger outbreak, the CDC said.
Cargill and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union began meeting today to negotiate an end to a six-week strike that has crippled the Ontario beef industry.
The 960 union members usually slaughter and process 75 per cent of Ontario’s beef at two facilities in Guelph.
“Cargill is focused on putting an end to this labor disruption and welcoming our employees back to work,” the company said.
Another local o the same union has a strike mandate from its members as it continues to negotiate with Cargill over work at a beef further-processing plant near Calgary, Alta.
The Sunterra Markets hog-packing plant at Trochu, Alta., has burned.
The plant employs about 155 people, some of them foreigners, and is the main employer in the town of about 1,000 people about 120 km. northeast of Calgary.
Sunterra was founded by the Price family which began as a purebred hog operation. It is now run by the second and third generations.
At one time it owned the hog-packing plant in Mitchell that was started by the Terpstra family. The Terpstras also began as hog farmers. The plant now processes turkeys for Sofina.