Bolthouse drinks recalled

There is a recall for Bolthouse brand protein drinks distributed across Canada and the United States.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says there have been no illnesses reported, but cautions that the drinks might be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes food-poisoning bacteria.

The same company, Bolthouse Farms of Grant, Mich., recalled its carrot juice in September. 2006, 

but there were cases of food poisoning – two in Toronto, two in Quebec, two in Atlanta and two others in the United States.

Farm technology company raising $11 million

Resson Aerospace Corp. has raised $11 million US for research into technology that will improve farming, especially under drought conditions.

Resson works out of a National Research Council laboratory in New Brunswick. It raised $3 million in a previous round of funding.

This time it’s backed by a number of venture-capital firms and will use the money for research and development, to build sales operations and to open an office in San Jose, Calif., hoping both to partner with Californian agricultural universities and to leverage its technology to assist with the state’s drought problems

“This is truly global,” said Jeff Grammer, Resson’s executive chairman and an early investor through his firm Rho Canada Ventures. “If you look at McCain, they basically have potato acreage worldwide. They’re looking at this as a much wider program than just New Brunswick.”

The $11-million figure, worth about $14-million Canadian, would make the deal one of the biggest early-stage funding rounds in the Atlantic region since the financial crisis, according to data provided by Thomson Reuters.

Contributing to this round are Rho Canada, McCain, Halifax’s Build Ventures, Saint John’s East Valley Ventures, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, BDC Capital, and lead investor Monsanto Growth Ventures, the venture-capital arm of seed company Monsanto.

“We were quite impressed by the drive that they have, the uniqueness of what they’re trying to do, and the level of sophistication they’re trying to get to,” McCain chief executive officer Dirk Van de Put told The Globe and Mail.

Using photos of crops – from tractor cameras, drones or satellite imagery – the company has developed image-processing technology that, combined with ground-sensor data, uses large-scale cloud-based data processing to help farmers assess crop production and field conditions. “Using their algorithms on the imaging side and what’s happening in the dirt itself, they’re able to do predictive analytics,” Mr. Grammer said. “It helps a farmer understand what diseases could be coming to their farms.”

Eventually, he said, the technology could be harvested to help farmers achieve maximum return on investment for their businesses, such as by helping farmers figure out how much water or herbicide they should use on a given field.

Olymel investing $25 million in pork plant

Olymel is investing more than $25 million to expand its hog slaughterhouse and processing facility north of Montreal.

The project will increase the operation's capacity by a third to 40,000 hogs per week.

Up to 200 jobs will be added to the 810 workers at the St-Esprit facility. They have agreed to extend their union contract by seven years.

Olymel’s chief executive officer, Rejean Nadeau, said the 3,250 square metre expansion will allow the meat processing company to better meet customer demand across Canada and exports, especially to China.

The St-Esprit plant produces various cuts of pork, seasoned pork products and vacuum-packed products. The expansion will add a refrigeration room to produce chilled pork.

Olymel also has operations in Ontario, Alberta, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan and is Canada’s largest-volume hog slaughterer. It also has significant chicken processing facilities.

CFIA tightens import regs

Effective July 4, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is adding a list of fresh fruits, spice plants and other items to its import restrictions to prevent entry of the European grapevine moth.

This follows restrictions implemented in March on grape and blueberry imports from 52 countries.

“A date for the final implementation phase will be announced and is expected sometime in Fall 2016. It will include plants for planting and other regulated commodities including kiwi fruit,” the CFIA says on its website.

The CFIA is phasing in implementation to give provide stakeholders time to adjust to the modified import requirements and prevent disruption of trade. In addition to kiwi fruit, the list is:

Berberis vulgaris	European barberry
Clematis vitalba	old man's beard
Daphne gnidium	spurge flax
Diospyros kaki	persimmon
Galium mollugo	false baby's breath
Hypericum calycinum	St. John's Wort
Ligustrum vulgare	European privet
Olea europaea	olive (except olive fruit)
Prunus spp.	Almond, cherry, nectarine, plum, etc.
Punica granatum	pomegranate
Rhus glabra	smooth sumac
Ribes spp.	currant, gooseberry
Rosmarinus officinalis	rosemary
Rubus caesius	European dewberry
Rubus fructicosus	European blackberry
Silene vulgaris	bladder campion
Trifolium pratense	red clover
Urginea maritima	sea squill
Vaccinium spp.	blueberry
Ziziphus jujuba	jujube

Cattle vaccine fails

Research trials indicate a vaccine to counter salmonella in feedlot cattle does not work.

The research report is posted by Dr. Doug Powell at barfblog.com .

Canadians developed a vaccine against E. Coli 0157:H7 that does appear to work to significantly reduce that dangerous food-poisoning bacteria when administered to feedlot cattle before marketing.

Labour minister would end temporary foreign worker program

She says she was only joking, but the federal labour minister has said she’d be happy to see an end to the temporary foreign workers program.

It’s not clear what her views are about the seasonal farm workers program, also facing heavy criticism from labour unions.

The Canadian Meat Council is among those who strongly support the program to meet their demand for eager workers in less than ideal conditions.

Canadian Press reports that “some eagerly awaiting a federal review of the program did not find it funny.”

 Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk made the remarks at a private gathering in Ottawa with the executive of the Canadian Labour Congress and its nationwide affiliates this spring, where the mostly friendly crowd comprised a few dozen people who were themselves no fans of the program.

"She made comments along the lines (of) it will be a happy day in her office when she cancels the program and stuff like that," said Joseph Maloney, the international vice-president of Canada for the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.

Mihychuk says she meant it as a joke, but she is nonetheless standing by her message that she hopes one day soon, the program will no longer be necessary.

"I was talking about the low-skilled temporary foreign workers, because there's a lot of systemic changes that need to happen to the program and if we had full employment, if we had those that are unemployed working, it would probably eliminate all temporary foreign workers," she told the Canadian Press in an interview.

"It would be an indication our economy is booming and that would be great news."

The controversial temporary foreign workers program — characterized as crucial by some, broken and abuse-prone by others —is currently under review by the House of Commons standing committee on human resources, which is expected to deliver its report before MPs go home for the summer.

Feds invest in ag. Research

The federal government is investing to upgrade agricultural research facilities.

Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay announced that federal government’s 2016 budget includes $37.6 to modernize a number of research stations and laboratories in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Quebec.

Before budget cuts in the 1970s, Agriculure Canada ran the largest research organization in the country, employing more than 1,000 scientists in more than 50 research stations.

It is also Canada’s oldest research organization.

Today it is a pale shadow of that previous stature.