U.S. corn growers victor over Mexico

Corn growers in the United States have defeated a Mexican ban on genetically-modified corn varieties in an appeal to the disputes-settling administration under the free trade agreement among Canada, the United States and Mexico (CUSMA).

The dispute traces back to December 2020, when Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador first announced plans to ban GM corn by the end of 2024. 

Mexico’s position intensified in early 2023 with the issuance of a decree banning GM white corn, effective immediately. 

This action spurred the National Corn Growers Association and state corn grower groups to push for a formal dispute settlement under the CUSMA, which the U.S. Trade Representative ultimately pursued.

The decision also opens the Mexican market to Canadian corn exports. Canada supported the appeal and said “Canada shares the concerns of the United States that Mexico is not compliant with the science and risk analysis obligations under CUSMA’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Chapter.

“Canada believes that the measures taken by Mexico are not scientifically supported and have the potential to unnecessarily disrupt trade in the North American market.”

Phosphate mine in north to reopen

A British Columbia company has bought a phosphate mine near Kapuskasing and plans to bring it back into production.

Agrium closed in in 2013 saying the deposit was running out.

But there is keen demand for phosphorous fertilizer and another company said earlier this year it plans to open a mine near Hearst, also in Northern Ontario.

Infracon Construction Inc., the buyer at Kapuskasing, said it plans to work with Cargill Township the indigenous community of Taykwa Tagamou Nation.

Avian flu outbreak in Oxford County

 

There has been an outbreak of highly-pathogenic avian influenza on a commercial poultry farm in Oxford County.

There are about 4,000 birds on the farm.

It is the second outbreak in Ontario this week and this year.

Caledon sued over 5,000-acre expansion

 

Democracy Caledon has filed a lawsuit against the township of Caledon over 5,000 acres of farmland the province added for housing development.

Mayor Annette Groves said the township will vigorously defend itself.

The lawsuit cites 12 zoning bylaws passed this summer to fast-track housing developments.

Democracy Caledon filed the notice of application in the Ontario Court of Justice Dec. 5, arguing council’s approval of the zoning bylaws doesn’t conform to the official plans of Caledon and Peel Region and can be quashed for illegality under Section 273 of the Municipal Act.

In a news release Tuesday, the town countered that the bylaws were enacted “in accordance with the provincial legislation and in keeping with all procedural requirements of both the Planning Act and the Municipal Act.”

The bylaws would rezone 5,000 acres of land, leapfrogging several steps in the planning process to build 35,000 new housing units.

Democracy Caledon said the rezonings threaten farmland, the Greenbelt and ratepayers’ tax bills.

Caledon Mayor Annette Groves said the residents’ group is using “inaccurate and misleading information” to raise fears in the community. 

She said “our solicitors have advised that this lawsuit is completely without merit, and the town will be vigorously defending it.”

The town said that all lands addressed by the 12 zoning bylaws sit within Caledon’s urban boundary or are adjacent to an existing settlement area.

Valerie M’Garry named drainage referee

 

 

Valerie M’Garry, a lawyer from Sarnia, has been named Ontario’s drainage referee.

She was solicitor for Sairnia for 10 years, including when it was merged with Clearwater.

The drainage referee hears appeals on the legal aspects of drainage work as well as appeals from drainage decisions by the Onario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness Appeal Tribunal.

The appointment was made by OMAFA.

Hormel settles price-fixing lawsuit

 

Hormel Foods has paid $2.4 million to settle its part of a pork price-fixing lawsuit that was filed against the largest pork packing companies in the United States.

A Minnesota federal judge has approved the deal.

The case was part of a larger legal action involving 27 consolidated cases and 146 parties. The allegations centered on claims that pork producers conspired to fix prices, with the case initially consolidated in December, 2022.

British research uses pigs for vaccination study

British researchers have used pigs to establish that delivering vaccines by breath is a viable alternative to injection.

“This is an important step toward human research,” Pirbright Institute at the University of Oxford said in a release. “Interest in administering vaccines mucosally, rather than by intramuscular injections, has been growing since the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was declared in 2020.”

“Comprehensive measurement of immune responses in human lungs is not possible,” the researchers said, so they used pigs whose respiratory tract is similar to humans.

Samples collected from both the lungs and blood of vaccinated pigs, aided by mathematical modelling, showed that lung responses can be predicted from blood tests, making it easier to assess vaccine effectiveness in humans, the release said.

“To bring future vaccines to market, it is critical to define the correlates of protection—markers that can reliably predict the effectiveness of the vaccine, in humans,” said Dr. Simon Gubbins, head of transmission biology at The Pirbright Institute.

The findings of this study, published in Frontiers in Immunology have far-reaching implications for the future development of mucosally-administered vaccines in clinical trials, Pirbright said. The pig model’s ability to closely mimic human immune responses to respiratory infections make it an ideal platform for testing vaccine efficacy.

“The research found that immune responses in the blood could reliably reflect those in the lungs, thus offering a practical way to assess the effectiveness of vaccines targeting the respiratory system,” said Dame Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford.

“The findings provide critical insights into how immune responses can be measured from easily accessible blood samples and are a foundation for future testing of mucosally administered vaccines in clinical trials,” she said.

Milk regulation due for update

 

The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness intends to amend the Milk Act and the Food Safety and Quality Act.

The changes address situations that have evolved.

The ministry says the milk components found in dairy products no longer strictly come from unprocessed raw milk and cream - milk ingredients (rather than raw milk) are increasingly used by processors in the manufacturing of dairy products. 

Legislation will be needed to make that change.

It is also moving to extend marketing board pricing controls to ingredients.

This will “support consistency in the end use pricing of milk products,” it said.

“The proposed amendments would expand the definition of a regulated product to include milk products, or milk products used as ingredients in processing. 

"Subsequent amendments to regulations under the Act would provide DFO (Dairy Farmers of Ontario marketing board) with authority to licence any person marketing milk products and ensure their compliance with the end use pricing regime. 

“These proposed amendments seek to safeguard the integrity of the supply management system, including creating uniform market conditions for processors whether they buy milk from DFO or not,” it said in its posting on the province’s regulatory registry.

OMAFA also said “there is inconsistent regulatory food safety oversight of milk in Ontario because the Milk Act does not provide for oversight of the production, transportation or processing of milk from species other than cow and goat. This situation persists even though the same food safety risks exist for milk from different species (cow, goat, sheep, water buffalo). 

“Furthermore, the food safety policy for cow and goat milk is developed by the Ontario Farm products Marketing Commission (OFPMC) - an agency comprised of part-time appointees of the Lieutenant Governor in Council (LGIC often referred to as the cabinet) where food safety is not part of its core mandate.“

OMAFA is proposing to amend the Milk Act and the FSQA (Food Safety and Quality Act) to enable the transfer of food safety and quality provisions from the Milk Act and its regulations to future regulations under the FSQA.

“This would allow for the future development of modern, outcome-based dairy food safety regulations for milk and milk products from all species under a more suitable statute (FSQA) made by the LGIC (cabinet), as is the case with all other foods in Ontario. 

Although it does not explicity say so, the Ontario Farm Product Marketing Commission would no longer delegate milk inspection and dairy farm standards and inspection to the milk board.

It's not clear from the proposals whether there would continue to be that delegation under the Food Safety and Quality Act.

OMAFA said it “will look for appropriate opportunities to reduce regulatory compliance obligations for businesses as a part of the legislative alignment while continuing to safeguard the public interest. 

The Milk Act would continue to focus on the regulated marketing of cow milk.”

It doesn't look like Premier Doug Ford had a hand in these proposals, but he might learn that they won't go down easily or well with the rural constituencies that account for his majority.

Man deathly sick with bird flu

A patient in Louisiana was hospitalized with a severe case of avian influenza (H5N1), marking the first time a person has fallen severely ill with the virus in the United States. There is a similar case in British Columbia where a young man is in hospital.

The United States Centers for Disease Control there have been 61 human infections with avian influenza, but none of them serious.

On a call with reporters, Demetre Daskalakis, CDC Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said

the Louisiana patient is believed to have been exposed to sick or dead birds in backyard flocks, the first such linkage in the U.S. They were not commercial poultry and were not exposed to dairy cows or related products.

CDC is conducting additional genomic sequencing to isolate virus from clinical specimens from the Louisiana patient, they said.

Officials noted the D1.1 strain of H5N1 is different from the B3.13 genotype detected in dairy cows, sporadic human cases in multiple states, and some poultry outbreaks in the U.S.  

No person-to-person spread of H5 bird flu has been detected.

Six farm groups withdraw from consultations

Six farm organizations have withdrawn from the federal government’s consultations on sustainable agriculture.

They are the Canadian Canola Growers Association, Canola Council of Canada, Cereals Canada, Grain Growers of Canada, Pulse Canada and Soy Canada.

They said Canadian agriculture is already the most sustainable in the world, and the strategy must contain measures that are practical, science-based, market driven and beneficial for the entire sector as well as the environment.

“Together, we have consistently voiced that there is a lack of industry alignment regarding the targets and actions proposed in the SAS (sustainable agriculture strategy). 

“As a result, we have collectively decided to step back from the advisory committee, as the strategy’s direction does not fully represent the interests of our members,” they said.

The government said the strategy should balance environmental sustainability, profitability and competitiveness, but two years after consultations were announced, there is still no plan.

Avian flu hits Strathroy farm

There has been an outbreak of highly-pathogenic avian influenza on a commercial poultry farm near Strathroy, reports the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

There are 914,000 birds on the farm. It is the only case in Ontario this year.

Food prices continue rising

 

 

Despite a decline in the consumer price index, food prices continued to rise in November.

Statistics Canada reported the overall inflation rate dropped to 1.9 per cent, but food prices rose by 2.6 per cent.

Compared with November, 2021, grocery prices rose 19.6 per cent.

Dairy prices will continue to rise.

The Canadian Dairy Commission said the price for milk that’s used to make dairy products such as butter and cheese will increase by 2.2 per cent on Feb. 1.

Prices for milk that consumers drink are set under provincial jurisdiction.

The Canadian Dairy Commission said the index used to determine prices takes into account dairy farmers’ costs of production as well as the consumer price index.

“In the last year, producers faced increases in feed costs, fertilizer costs, fuel costs, and interest rates. Disruptions to supply chains continue to put upward pressure on input costs. However, investment and productivity gains at the farm offset some of these increases,” it said.

That doesn't seem right to me. I figure feed is one of the main costs of production and grain prices are significantly lower now than a year ago.

Milk producers pull plug on calf study

 

The University of Saskatchewan has dropped a study of all-dairy compared with beef-sired dairy calves after Alberta dairy farmers declined to participate.

They want to continue to use only white ear tags on their calves and not yellow tags that identify the beef-sired calves.

There is evidence that the beef-sired calves perform better at making beef and so they attract higher prices at auction.

The Saskatchewan research team wanted to find how much better they perform, but needed to identify the calves sired by beef semen. 

Lactanet, a national dairy-industry performance-tracking service found there is a price difference between white- and yellow-tagged animals, but it did not delve deeper to discover if that holds true for cross-bred calves.

Last year, DairyTrace changed its ear tag policies. 

Producers used to have an exception so they could put yellow button tags on beef-sired dairy calves instead of white DairyTrace tags.

As of Sept. 1, 2023, however, all calves born on dairy farms must have a DairyTrace tag, including those with beef sires. 

The same policy changes ended dairy producers’ ability to put a yellow button on cull cows.

            

CFIA didn’t inspect Silk-making plant for Listeria

 The Globe and Mail said after months of questioning, it has determined that the plant that shipped milk replacements laced with food-poisoning Listeria monocytogenes bacteria went five years without any food-safety inspections and was never checked for Listeria.

Only after customers who fell sick after drinking Silk products, and one died, was it determined through genetic testing that the contamination went on for a year before it was detected.

The Globe and Mail said the plant was not closely checked because the CFIA determined it was in a low-risk category, and the newspaper said that whole system is a problem.

It is far from the first time the CFIA’s food inspection has been brought into disrepute.

The Waterloo Region Record won a governor-general award for public service for exposing terrible conditions in meat-packing plants and CFIA veterinary inspectors failing on the job, including one who hid from inspection staff behind a locked office door and another who danced and and sang on the moving eviscerating table. 

That veterinarian in charge of inspection at the plant also routinely loaded his trunk with beef from the plant and rented.a home from the plant’s owner, but was never confronted with a conflict of interest, despite newspaper queries to CFIA supervisors at the provincial and federal levels of responsibility.

                       

PED outbreak hits Perth farm

 

A finisher barn in Perth County has been hit by an outbreak of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus.

It is the first outbreak in Ontario since Nov. 14 and the 17^th this year.

By comparison, Quebec and Manitoba have had almost none after clamping down to prevent spread of the disease.

Horse export ban stalled

 

Legislation that seeks to ban the export of horses for slaughter to Japan is stalled in the Senate and may fail to pass before the session ends.

Two Manitoba senators are sparring over the issue, one a former broadcaster who proposed the ban, the other opposed to the legislation.

Senator Charles Adler said the horses are being abused.

"Once the doors are closed in Canada and the plane is in the air, Canada, the department that is responsible has absolutely no way of knowing what happens to those horses," Adler said. "There is a high probability these horses will suffer or sustain an injury during this process or worse."

Conservative Senator Don Plett invited Adler to go with him to the airport to see how the horses are handled.

"You insinuated, Senator Adler, that these horses are suffering on the tarmac. They are being cruelly put into crates where they cannot turn around, where they cannot lay down, which isn't true," Plett said. Adler declined.

Animal Justice, an animal rights organization released documents from the Japanese government showing at least one horse died after suffering injuries during a June flight to Japan. Several others collapsed en route. 

In September, the advocacy group provided documents revealing at least 21 horses died during or in the days after being flown from Canada to Japan between May 2023 and June 2024.

But the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said In February that it knows of only five horse deaths related to air shipments since 2013.

The CFIA told CBC News it has reviewed the documents provided by Animal Justice and, as a result, now requires exporters and air carriers to document the start and end times of each stage of shipment from Canada, as well as the total transport time.

It has received a contingency plan from the air carrier that includes measures to mitigate animal suffering in case of delays.

The CFIA said it found only one death and eight serious injuries that occurred in flight or were observed upon arrival between June 2023 and June 2024. The additional cases happened after the horses were in Japanese quarantine.

Canada can't compel Japan to report any incidents after the horses are off-loaded from the cargo planes so the CFIA said that won't be included in its reporting. As of September, Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) is providing Canada with that information.

Canada can't compel Japan to report any incidents after the horses are off-loaded from the cargo planes so the CFIA said that won't be included in its reporting. As of September, Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) is providing Canada with that information.

CFIA changing B.C. HPAI zoning

 

After more than a month of almost daily outbreaks of highly-pathogenic avian influenza among flocks in Lower Mainland British Columbia, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has announced a pilot project for quarantine zones in which all traffic in and out of poultry farms is regulated.

The CFIA said this new approach for this specific region in Canada will allow industry to maintain business continuity and meet international trade obligations. It will also help reduce and simplify the surveillance requirements in this area for producers without increasing the risk of disease spread.

Eleven predetermined geographical zones will be declared and revoked as needed when an infected premise is within the zone or if the it is within 10 km of the zone’s borders.

In contrast with standard quarantine zones which are created or amended with each new detection, the Fraser Valley zone boundaries will remain constant and can be “re-activated” throughout this outbreak event. 

When declared, these zones will transition from pre-determined zones to declared primary control zones to which quarantines apply. In all other parts of Canada, primary control zones (quarantines) will continue to be established around individual infected premises classified as poultry (according to the World Organization for Animal Health criteria), the CFIA said in a news release.

Outlook remains clouded by turmoils

 

The Canadian agriculture economy has been through constant turmoil since the Covid-19 pandemic swept around the world in 2022 and the outlook is for continued pressures and surprises, according to Aaron Goertzen, senior economist for the Bank of Montreal.

It will take time for crop inventories to normalize and if yields this year are average crop prices should stabilize and begin to regain some lost ground next year—but as always, producers are at the mercy of Mother Nature, he said.

In the livestock space, cattle producers appear to be taking initial steps toward restocking their herds, as the drought that previously afflicted large parts of cattle country has abated and feed costs are lower.

Hog producers have continued to expand cautiously, suggesting continued balance in that segment.

The weak Canadian dollar is acting as a broad support for Canadian agricultural prices, which would likely be around 10 per cent lower under a more neutral exchange rate, he said.

“The flip side, however, is that imported inputs are also costlier.

Overall farm costs have increased by more than 35 per cent

since the beginning of 2019 and are unlikely to come down.

What is coming down is interest rates.

He praised farmers for increasing productivity.

“It is an admirable feat that farmers can produce nearly three

times as much agricultural output per hour of labour than only

a quarter century ago. 

“And even today, producers continue to invest heavily in their operations. A short walk through a farm trade show illustrates the incredible amount of technology being deployed by both crop

and livestock producers, suggesting continued outperformance ahead.”

President-elect Donald Trump represents huge uncertainty for the coming year, and not just on the threat of tariffs on exports to the United States, but also the global economy and wars.

One uncertainty Goerzen did not mention is what will happen if there is an outbreak of a serious disease such as African Swine Fever, foot and mouth disease or a crops-ravaging disease.

                    

Financial protection arrives for produce growers

 

Fruit and vegetable growers will soon have financial protection if their customers fail to pay.

The Senate has approved a private member’s bill that amends and federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to provide growers protection that’s similar to their United States peers who have had it for years.

“The passage of Bill C-280 has been the result of decades of advocacy by organizations and industry members across the fresh produce supply chain and in the broader agriculture sector,” said president Ron Lemaire of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association in a news release.

“The positive impact of Bill C-280 on the highly integrated fresh produce industry cannot be overstated,” said Luc Mougeot, president and chief executive officer of the Fruit and Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation.

“The lack of a financial protection mechanism in Canada has been a pain point in our trading relationship with the United States for many years,” Mougeot said. 

“We look forward to working with our U.S. counterparts to put in place reciprocal protection and provide stability for produce sellers on both sides of the border.”

Canadians had to post a double bond to access protection on exports under the U.S. protocols.

It is Scot Davidson, a Conservative who represents York-Simcoe, who introduced the bill.

Manitoba clamps down on PED

 

Manitoba has imposed a five-kilometre quarantine zone around a hog finisher barn and called on producers to practice heightened biosecurity because of the first case this year of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus.

The response is the first time the province’s new PED containment plan has been activated.

It was developed by the Manitoba Pork marketing board and Manitoba Agriculture department.

The farm and quarantine zone are in the Southwestern part of the province.

Ontario has had 15 outbreaks of PED and eight of Porcine Deltacorona virus this year.

Twelve Ontario bats found rabid

 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said 12 Ontario bats were confirmed to have rabies in testing of 99 samples in November.

That brings the Ontario total to 87 rabid bats this year.

The national total is 134 cases of rabies, 123 of them bats.

Kroger-Albertson merger collapses

 

The $25 billion deal to merge Kroger and Albertson supermarket chains in the United States has collapsed.

A judge in Oregon agreed with the federal trade commission that the merger would significantly reduce competition.

The deal was announced in October, 2022, and drew widespread criticism for creating a business too dominant in the grocery business.

Kroger said now it will buy back $7.5 billion worth of its shares.

Albertson accused Kroger of failing to provide regulators with sufficient information of how many stores it would sell to avoid limiting competition in local markets. Kroger said it would sell 579 stores.

There are strong supermarket companies in various parts of the United States, but only Walmart and Costco are national chains. Canada, by comparison, is dominated by strong national chains such as Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart and Costco.

Sobeys sales up, profits down

 

Empire Co. Ltd., owner of Sobeys supermarket chain, said second-quarter sales increased slightly to $7.78 billion compared with $7.75 billion last year and profits declined to $173.4 million from $181.1 million last year.

Empire owns Canada’s second-largest supermarket conglomerate.

It owns Sobeys, Longo’s, Safeway, Thrifty, Rachelle Bery, Tradition and BoniChoix stores.

Quebec couple loses appeal

 

Charlotte Dupuis and Benjamin Chartrand have lost an appeal against a $6,600 fine levied by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The fine was for transporting a cow over the border with the United States.

However, Emily Crocco, president of the Canadian Agriculture Appeal Tribunal, reduced the fine to $6,000.

Tractor, combine sales slow

Farmers were apparently cautious about kicking tires on new tractors and combines during November.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers reported sales of 1,814 tractors this November compared with 2,234 the same month last year. 

There were 40 self-propelled combine sold compared with 66 last November, a decline of more than 39 per cent.

Eighty four-wheel drive tractors were sold compared with 84 a year ago and only q1,734 two-wheel drive tractors were sold, more than 19 per cent fewer than last year.

Eleven-month cumulative figures show a 12.3 per cent decline in combine sales and 17 per cent decline for tractors.

The association does not capture all sales in Canada.

The United States registered greater declines than Canada with November tractor sales down by 14.5 per cent and combines by 24 per cent.

Chicken agency sets production goal

 

Chicken Farmers of Canada has set a goal to produce 216 million kilograms of chicken, 76 million of it in Ontario, in the spring.

The Ontario marketing board said “demand for chicken continues to be strong. This is supported by competing meat prices, population growth and steady per capita consumption.”

The goal for Canada is half a per cent above base quota and for Ontario .52 per cent above base.

The production will take place between April 6 and May 31.

Bird flu hits British Columbia hard

 

Highly-infectious avian influeza is hitting British Columbia’s poultry industry hard.

With almost daily outbreaks, the number of currently-infected premises has risen to 68 impacting 7.6 milllion birds.

There are four active cases in Alberta, four in Quebec and one each in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The Quebec outbreaks are of a low-pathogenicity strains and impact 1.3 million birds.

Grain farmer leadership training announced

 

Grain Farmers of Ontario, Corteva and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness are partnering to deliver a leadership program.

It will be delivered at the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business Management.

The first class is in March.

All three organizations said leadership is needed for the industry.

The program is designed to develop confident speakers, foster inspiring leaders, and create a strong network for participants. 

It will foster a shared sense of purpose and connection amongst farmers from different regions, creating a strong, unified voice for our organization and the grain sector, Grain Farmers of Ontario said in a news release.

The globe is getting drier

 

An area of Earth larger than Canada has transformed from humid lands to dryland over the last 30 years, destroying food systems, driving poverty and leading to water shortages said a new report from the United Nations’ Convention to Combat Desertification.

It said that between 1990 and 2020, more than three-quarters of the Earth’s land became permanently drier. More than 40 per cent of the global land mass (excluding Antarctica) is now classified as drylands – up from 37 per cent in previous decades. Twice as many people worldwide live in drylands today compared with 1990.

The report found that an area larger than Canada has been permanently transformed, for example from humid landscapes to drylands, or from forests into grasslands. China saw the largest total area permanently transformed; as a percentage of their total area, South Sudan and Tanzania were hit hardest.

Ibrahim Thiaw, the convention’s executive secretary, called it “an existential threat affecting billions of people”.

More cucumbers in recall

 

Baloian Farms of Arizona Co., Inc. is recalling all sizes of whole fresh American cucumbers packaged in a “Pamela” brand bulk cardboard container.

The boxes have a sticker with the grower’s name, “Agrotato, S.A. de C.V.,” or a clear “PamPak” brand bag of six cucumbers with the UPC code 8 25401 07010 6.

Earlier SunFed, also in Arizona, recalled cucumbers.

In both cases the reason for the recalls is Salmonella food-poisoning bacteria.

A record potato harvest

Statistics Canada reports that this year’s potato harvest has set a record at 25.598 million hundredweight.

Yields were down from last year, but acreage was up by 2,000 to 383,666.

Yields have shot up from about 280 hundredweight per acre in 2010 to about 325 in the last four years.

Total production has also increased, including Western Canada to supply French fry processors.

Cavendish Farms, McCain Foods and Simplot built new French-fry plants or expanded existing plants in Manitoba and Alberta.

Last year McCain’s announced a $600 million investment that will double the size of its plant near Coaldale, Alta.

Alberta now produces more spuds than any province, accounting for 23.7 per cent of Canada’s production. Manitoba is second at 21.6 per cent and Prince Edward Island, historically the leader, is now at 20.4 per cent.

And where Is Ontario? Ah, but it has a marketing board. 

And my experience is that it markets some of the most damaged spuds in supermarkets. There are a few rare exceptions. 

Sydenham tackles phosphorous runoff

The Sydenham river system ranks third among rivers polluting Lake Erie with excess phosphorous, so the federal government’s Canada Water Agency is giving the conservation authority $7.8 to tackle the problem which is mainly runoff from farms.

The Sydenham Phosphorus Reduction Initiative offers funding and education to landowners interested in implementing or enhancing agricultural best management practices on their properties.

The St. Clair Regional Conservation Authority said best management practices such as windbreaks, cover crops, and wetland restoration play a critical role in reducing phosphorous entering waterways.

It noted these practices can also help to reduce soil erosion, protect water quality, increase crop yields, and potentially decrease the need for fertilizer.

The St. Clair conservation authority includes the Sydenham River.

Meat and veggies will cost more

 

Meat and vegetable prices will rise next year and so will restaurant meals, predicts a team from Dalhousie University in Halifax and the University of Guelph.

In their annual Food Price Report, they say prices will rise by three to five per cent next year.

This year’s price increases have been at the low end of the outlook they provided a year ago when they said prices would rise by 2.5 to 4.5 per cent. So far they are up by 2.9 per cent.

They predict meat prices will rise by four to six per cent to record highs.

Beef is the priciest. They cite $32 per kilogram in September for beef striploin cuts compared with $20 last December.

There are fewer beef cattle than any time since 1987 and the current high prices will be prompting ranchers to keep more females for breeding rather than shipping them to market which will exacerbate the beef shortage.

But chicken and turkey production are under marketing board control and the federal and provincial governments mandate them to keep the Canadian market well supplied.

Pork has been a bargain for much of this year and the outlook is for those prices to remain relatively stable.

If president-elect Donald Trump hits Canadian meat exports with a 25 per cent tariff, it could create chaos in the Canadian beef and pork markets. The Food Price Report is silent on that issue.

Among factors pushing prices higher is the decline in the value of the Canadian dollar against the U.S. which supplies most of Canada’s food imports, including fresh fruits and vegetables during winter months.

Climate change is pushing up cocoa prices in West Africa which is suffering from drought, orange prices due to flooding in Brazil and wildfires in Canada that disrupt rail and truck traffic.

More workers get bird flu

 

Two more workers on California dairy farms have contracted highly-infectious avian influenza, bringing the total this year to 31 in that state.

And agriculture officials report the bird flu virus has been detected in 14 more dairy herds, bringing the total of infected cows to 475 in California and 689 nation-wide.

There have been no cases in Canada, although the virus has been deadly in lower mainland British Columbia where new outbreaks have been occurring almost daily since early November.

Sow mortality low in Ontario

 

Sow mortality rates on Ontario hog farms are less than half of those ii Europe and Brazil, but there is room for improvement, veterinarians Greg Wideman and Courtney Werth told the farmers attending the Big Bug Day recently in Elora.

The Ontario sow mortality rate is 7.5 per cent.

Worthy said a skilled and trained workforce helps, citing an Iowa State University study that found sow mortality declined by 4.5 per cent in herds where staff completed a two-week training program.

Wideman recommended removing prospective gilts from the finishing-hog pens and giving them three weeks to develop maturity and better body condition.

They should also be housed in stalls until they are bred so they are experienced with farrowing stalls.

He cited a few studies that showed a wide range of weight and age of hogs when they were bred, resulting in highly-variable successful piglet rearing and an undesirable degree of weight loss during lactation.

There are better results in farms that check sow weights both at breeding and weaning, he said.

He said staff attending to farrowing and early days tend to focus on the piglets, but should also be paying attention to condition and health of the sows.

Worthy attributed Ontario’s good sow mortality statistics to smaller operations managed by owners and a lower rate of PRRS.

Hog workers urged to get flu vaccination

 

Dr. Afolakemi Adenjiii of Animal Health Canada advised hog farmers and workers to get vaccinated against influenza.

She was speaking to the Big Bug Day at Elora about avian influenza and the risk it could spread to hogs and people as it already has from migrating birds to poultry farms, dairy cattle and workers.

While the vaccine won’t protect against avian influenza, it will prevent people from being hit with a double whammy.

There has been only one case of infection in a pig- onOcdt. 30 in Oregon – and that pig was eating an infected duck.

Adenjii said the health concern is that the virus will jump from one species to another, mingle and become highly infectious and deadly and trigger a pandemic.

She therefore recommended that hog farmers keep other animals away from their pigs, such as poultry, cattle and horses.

The first case in a dairy cow was March 25 and since then there have been 691 cattle in 16 states infected, but none in Canada.

Canada has had 50 outbreaks in poultry in the last month, most of them in British Columbia and half of them in backyard flocks and half in commercial poultry operations.

She said farmers should keep birds, pigs from other places and mice out of their barns because they could transmit the virus.

Don’t feed raw milk to piglets or pigs and report diseases to the farm veterinarian, she said.

Sterile sows could end wild boar population

Dr. Ray Lu of the University of Guelph has an idea to rid Canada of its wild boar populations, but needs funding, he told the Big Bug meeting recently at Elora.

He said governments say they are waiting for the pork industry to lead and the pork industry is waiting for governments to lead “and we’re caught in the middle. We need a break.”

One of the threats is diseases could spread from wild pigs to hog farms. African Swine Fever is of particular concern because an outbreak on a hog farm would shut off exports which account for about 70 per cent of the industry’s revenues.

Dr. Lu said there have been reports of African Swine Fever popping up spontaneously – i.e without any spread that can be identified from diseased pigs.

And the Canadian population of wild pigs has been spreading agt the rate of about 88,000 square kilometers per year, mainly in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, but there have also been sightings in Northwest Ontario and Quebec.

Hunting, fencing and trapping have been ineffective, he said.

His idea is to build on technology used at the University of Guelph to develop the Enviropig to develop genetics that render females sterile.

His idea is to obtain cells from wild pigs in Western Canada an genetically engineer a cell without a particular gene. That can ber done using CRISPR technology which can identify a specific gene, knock it out or change it.

Then the plan is to grow a boar from a doctored cell, a boar who breeds sows whose female piglets either die in the womb or are sterile when they are born and grow.

If this works as planned, within five years the wild boar population would be cutr in half and in 10 years would be gone, he said.

The idea of sterilized genetics is not new. It has been successfully applied in Florida and a city in Brazil to almost completely rid those areas of mosquitoes that spread diseases such as dengue fever, yellow fever and Zika fever, he said.