The United States is releasing about $1 billion worth of subsidies for beef farmers who experienced drought and wildfires over the past two years.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins made the announcement this week and said it is speeding up assessments which trigger payments.
Penny and Glenn Beer say they may have to give up their 40-hectare horse business because the city is dumping more waste water down a ravine, making it too dangerous to use riding trails for their business.
She said trails have sometimes been washed out and once a horse sank in mud up to its knees. It’s no longer safe for clients who use it for training, include some Olympic competitors.
"I have people that would come in and train and it's affected the training," Beer told CBC Toronto."We felt like it wasn't safe for them to be using those trails."
After 80 years of trying to reduce pork fat, hog farmers are now being advised to increase marbling to improve sales.
CoBank said pork’s opportunity to reconnect with U.S. consumers has never been bigger and more marbling to improve taste, greater convenience and larger roasts would help.
About one quarter of U.S. pork production is exported, a share that has roughly doubled in the last 20 years. Canada exports about 70 per cent of its pigs and pork.
The U.S. pork industry is highly reliant on exports in an era of trade policy risk, but unleashing stalled domestic demand could help, according to a new report Thursday from Cobank.
Brian Earnest, lead animal protein economist with CoBank and Cobank analyst Abbi Prins wrote that “if the U.S. consumer is to truly reimagine pork, some fairly significant changes may be required over time.
“Recalibrating the genetic hog makeup and showcasing different cuts at retail and through food service could be in order. Utilizing pork in a new way could help find the pork equivalent of a beef T-bone or rib-eye for a richly flavored, premium-priced offering.”
United States has cancelled a contract with Moderna Inc. to develop a vaccine against highly-pathogenic avian influenza.
Moderna is famous for rapidly developing a vaccine against COVID-19.
The $766 million contract, first awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services last July and renewed in January before the Trump administration took office, was voided.
Moderna chief executive Stephane Bancel said the company would “explore alternative paths forward for the program.“
The avian flu vaccine in development uses mRNA technology, which was first brought to the market in 2020 against the Covid-19 virus. It is currently in testing with 300 adults.
"While the termination of funding from HHS adds uncertainty, we are pleased by the robust immune response and safety profile observed in this interim analysis of the Phase 1/2 study of our H5 avian flu vaccine,” Bancel said.
The poultry and livestock industries have pondered using vaccination as an alternative to euthanizing tens of millions of birds after infections broke out in flocks. So far that has been rejected because it would probably result in the loss of export markets.
That's because vaccinated birds cannot be distinguished from infected birds.
While chickens and turkeys have been sacrificed to stop the virus, the dairy industry has not culled herds after a cow or milk tests positive for the virus.
A day after the United States court of international trade ruled President Donald Trump could not use emergency powers to impose tariffs, the Court of Appeals granted an emergency motion which leaves the tariffs in place – for now.
Trump officials argued the pause is "critical for the country's national security."
Bankruptcy receiver Price Waterhouse Coopers has told the court it has a buyer for Merit’s land, buildings, equipment and other assets, but the identify of the buyer and pricing remain confidential.
Merit Functional Foods of Manitoba was one of Canada/’s leading plant-protein companies when it ran into financial difficulties.
Price Waterhouse Coopers said there will be no money for unsecured creditors.
Merit was placed into receivership in March 2023. Burcon NutraScience Corp., a Vancouver-based tech company that owned 31.6 per cent of Merit’s shares when it was placed in receivership was in talks to acquire the company, but its initial two bids were rejected by the receiver.
A federal court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump from imposing broad new tariffs under emergency powers.
The United States Court of International Trade ruled that the president exceeded his authority under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act by unilaterally enacting the so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs, which targeted most U.S. trading partners.
The ruling followed lawsuits from small businesses and a coalition of 12 states, arguing that tariffs require congressional approval and that trade deficits don’t qualify as a national emergency.
The court left in place Trump’s earlier tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum, which were enacted on national security grounds. However, it halted more recent levies on imports from countries including Canada, China and Mexico.
Trump’s administration filed an immediate appeal, and the case is expected to reach the Supreme Court.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have deleted a cluster of genes in wheat that generates gluten proteins that can trigger immune reactions without harming the breadmaking quality of this globally nutritious crop.
Lead researcher Maria Rottersman said this won’t produce a celiac-safe form of wheat but represents a critical step forward in celiac disease research.
“The gluten proteins we eliminated are the ones that trigger the strongest response in people with celiac disease, and their elimination can reduce the risk of triggering the disease in people without celiac disease,” said Jorge Dubcovsky, a wheat geneticist with Rottersman.
“The exciting thing that we found is that the quality of the flour produced by this wheat is actually, in some cases, improved,” Rottersman said.
“Growers can not only grow it but can expect to have a higher quality product, which I think is a huge incentive for folks to widely adopt this variety. They can be planted in the same way that normal wheat is planted.”
The varieties are conventionally bred, with artisanal bakers, millers and farm-to-fork operations expressing interest in them, Rotterssman said.
A growing number of people in Germany are open to the idea of eating cultivated meat structured by 3D printers, with younger people showing particular interest in the technology, according to a recent survey conducted by Bitkom Research, a German market research firm.
Twenty-four per cent of Germans surveyed can now imagine eating cultured meat from a 3D printer, up from 13 per cent six years ago.
Support was 33 per cent among those of ages 16 to 29 and 35 per cent for those of ages 30 to 49.
Only 18 per cent of those of ages 50 to 64 were open to the novel products and 14 per cent of those older than 65.
"The process [of 3D printing] makes it possible to give products an appearance and texture similar to conventional meat – but with a significantly smaller ecological footprint," said Margareta Maier of Bitkom digital farming.
"Food printers are still relatively expensive and rely on specialized ingredients. Therefore, they are not yet suitable for mass production,” she said.
Meanwhile in Texas the legislature is speeding up the legislative protocols to pass legislation banning cell-cultured meats for two years.
Nebraska is also debating legislation to ban cultivated meats.
The owners of an ostrich farm in southeastern British Columbia said United States health official and former television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz has offered to save the birds from an impending cull by relocating them to his ranch in Florida.
But Katie Pasitney, whose parents own the farm, said they aren’t interested in moving the flock, although they’re grateful for the support.
Oz joined Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in calling for the birds to be spared after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said they need to be euthanized to prevent the spread of highly-pathogenic avian influenza that killed some of the birds. Oz is the administrator for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
There are protestors now at the farm trying to prevent the CFIA from enacting its orders.
Earlier this month a judge denied a bid by Universal Ostrich farms of Edgewood, B.C., to stop the order.
The president of the union representing staff of the CFIA said its members are increasingly concerned about “intimidation and threats” workers they have received online over the planned cull.
Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus has broken out in a nursery barn in Wellington County, reports Swine Health Ontario.
It is the eighth outbreak in May.
Canadians increased their butter consumption by 32.2 per cent in March compared with February, and 10.7 per cent more ice cream.
There are more days in March.
Yet butter stocks in storage continued to increase by 992 tonnes to total more than 40,000 tonnes in March. That’s a 6,837-tonnes increase from a year ago.
That’s because milk increased.
The Canadian Dairy Commission is mandated to balance milk production and dairy consumption on the basis of butterfat. That results in a surplus of solids, not far, sometimes described as skim milk.
Avian influenza was discovered infecting a flock of 2.26 million laying hens in Arizona, prompting officials to euthanize the flock.
The positive test in Maricopa County was the second Arizona flock affected this year, following a January case in Pinal County that involved just over 300,000 hens.
For comparison, Canada’s all-time total is 14.566 million birds, 8.7 million of them in British Columbia.
The Ontario Superior Court judge has approved Loblaws offer of $500 million to settle a years-long bread price-fixing lawsuit.
Justice Ed Morgan said the amount was "an excellent and fair result for all concerned."
The settlement he approved includes a combined $404 million to be paid by Loblaw and George Weston. The remaining $96 million is accounted for through a gift card program Loblaw began in 2018 and ran through 2019 in hopes of making amends with customers who paid about $1.50 more per loaf of bread.
Once legal fees and other court expenses are paid, 78 per cent of the funds will be allocated to shoppers in Ontario with the remaining amount headed for people in Quebec.
Some customers wanted more, but did not show up in court to press their claims.
There are still some alleged participants in the price-fixing case whose defences have not yet been settled.
United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China and its retaliatory tariffs mean grain elevators and international traders find it difficult to hedge pricing, so they are relying on spot markets and domestic demand instead of exports.
According to a new research brief from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange, the longer the uncertainty continues to drag on markets, the more difficult it is for elevators and grain merchants.
Especially those who have dealt with China “may be forced into widening new-crop basis to attract local demand,” said Tanner Ehmke, grains and oilseeds economist with CoBank.
“Basis for corn, soybeans and wheat is strong now. However, if new-crop sales remain lethargic, basis could weaken substantially, particularly for soybeans in the northern Plains and northern Midwest with high exposure to the Chinese market,” he said.
As of May 1, U.S. new-crop export sales were well below their five-year historical averages, with soybeans falling 88.2 per cent and corn dropping 26.9 per cent.
China has cancelled orders with several U.S. traders and has bought more from Brazil and Argentina.
Sales to Mexico and Japan, the second and third largest markets for U.S. soybeans, are also lagging well below historical purchases of new-crop soybeans for this time of year.
Wheat sales into major markets such as the Philippines and Korea lag historical levels, while corn new-crop sales to important destinations such as Japan and Latin America are behind average.
Strong old-crop sales and domestic usage that has supported local basis have largely masked the drop in new-crop sales.
Total U.S. export commitments for the 2024-2025 marketing year are up by 27per cent for corn, 13 per cent for soybeans and 14 per cent for wheat year-over-year.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has cancelled the licence for Jagger Trading Inc. of Thornhill because it failed to declare freshwater mitten crab meat it imported.
It is illegal to import that species.
Cynthia Kunkel of Orillia and Connor Howie of Sioux Lookout have been appointed to two-year terms on the Animal Care Review Board.
It hears appeals from people whose animals have been seized by animal welfare inspectors.
Kunkel has a career in justice administration, including currently being full-time adjudicator for the Social Benefits Tribunal.
Howie is the Director of Health Services at Independent First Nations Alliance.
Because United States President has been erratic in his announcement and imposition of tariffs, it’s difficult to know the impact on Canadian prices next week, month or year.
It’s also difficult to know whether commodities could actually cross the border to fulfill contracts.
And it is not only U.S. tariffs on Canadian commodities that impact Canadian prices.
Mussell provides the example of China’s tariff on U.S. pork which has stopped exports of offal to China.
The offals are being rendered instead and at lower returns, so U.S. hog prices are depressed.
But Canadian pricing is, in most instances for pigs, linked to the U.S. price, Canadian hog prices have been pressured lower.
Mussell writes that It would be challenging to establish a Canadian futures market for commodities other than the grains and canola already trading on the Winnipeg exchange.
He said farmers and food companies that rely on hedging and contracts will need to wait to see how traders work out a system to deal with the new challenges surrounding the global trade war.
Grocery shopping cost 3.8 per cent more this April than a year ago, reports Statistics Canada.
It is the third month in a row that grocery costs have risen more than the overall inflation rate which was 1.7 per cent for April.
Beef prices represent the biggest sticker shock, up by 16.2 per cent from last year, Fresh vegetable prices are 3.8 per cent higher, coffee and tea 13.4 per cent and sugar 8.6 per cent.
Fuel prices went down by 18.1 per cent because of lower oil costs and an end to the carbon tax.
United States Senator Elizabeth Warren has raised concerns about donations by a JBS subsidiary to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee ahead of the Brazilian protein giant’s long-planned U.S. dual stock listing.
Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. which JBS has owned since 2009 was the top corporate donor to Trump’s second inauguration, giving $5 million.
JBS shareholders are scheduled to vote Friday on company management’s recommendation to approve the dual listing, first announced in 2023. The Securities and Exchange Commission ruled last month that the plan could go forward.
"Your large donations and direct stake in federal policies and enforcement actions, and the Trump administration's series of actions that benefit your companies, raise serious concerns about a potential quid-pro-quo arrangement," Warren wrote in a letter reported by the Reuters news agency.
JBS’ pursuit of a U.S. listing has met with opposition from environmental groups to issues such as rainforest conservation in Brazil.
Democrats in Congress have echoed that criticism while raising labor issues and have been joined by some Republicans questioning JBS business practices including price-fixing allegations and a past bribery scandal in Brazil.
It is the fifth settlement reached in the case and bringing the total to nearly $123 million.
Previous settlements include $75 million from Smithfield Foods, $20 million from JBS, $10 million from Seaboard Foods and $4.465 million from Hormel.
Protein Industries Canada of Regina has made a deal with a United Kingdom company which makes plant-based alternatives to meat.
Lovingly Made Four Mills and Bonaneco of Calgary are also partners.
Sofina Foods Inc. has made a deal to buy Exceldor Co-operative which has poultry processing plants at Hanover, Ont., two in Quebec and one in Manitoba.
The deal needs to clear examination by the federal Competition Bureau and from shareholders.
Exceldor President and CEO René Proulx said the acquisition would preserve the legacy of the cooperative’s producers and employees, while maintaining local production of branded products in Quebec and Manitoba.
Sofina Chairman and CEO Michael Latifi said the move reinforces Sofina’s commitment to investing in Canada’s poultry sector and growing key brands nationwide.
Sofina is a major meat processor in Ontario with a large hog-slaughtering plant in Burlington, a poultry processing plant in Listowel, and a hog packing plant in Mitchell, Fearmans Pork, Fletcher's, Vienna, Quality Meats, San Benedetto, Lavazza and Rio Mare.
It markets under Masgtrro, Lilydale, Janes and San Daniele, Fearmans Pork, Fletcher's, Vienna, Quality Meats, San Benedetto, Lavazza and Rio Mare band names.
It has 18 facilities in Canada and one in northern United Kingdom.
The Farm Products Council of Canada has approved a special production increase to supply egg processing companies that would otherwise be relying on supplementary import permits.
Imports are unlikely this year because the United States is experiencing a supply shortage due to culling to prevent the spread of avian influenza.
Egg Farners of Canada wrote to the council that “the STMRQ category was created as a fiscally prudent risk mitigation tool to increase
domestic supply for the processing industry, lessening reliance on imports, specifically supplementary requests.
“STMRQ focuses on identifying eligible flocks to produce beyond the
typical flock cycle where facility and other conditions have been met.
“Flocks participating in STMRQ do so on a temporary basis in response to urgent requirements in the processing marketplace.
“As such, STMRQ production is dedicated to processors and subject to the prevailing pricing under the Industrial Products (IP) Program; no eggs produced under STMRQ are destined to the table market.
“To ensure an equitable, predictable and controlled supply to Canadian processors, the IP Program assumes the expenses for transportation
from the production facility to the processor. No other costs of STMRQ production are incurred in the IP Program.
“ Provincial egg boards are responsible for the management of the program through Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with EFC (Egg Farmers of Canada) and the respective processing
stations. When STMRQ supply is no longer required, EFC directs egg boards to removeparticipating flocks from production as soon as it is feasible to do so.”
Canada’s dominant egg processors are controlled by Burnbrae and GrayRidge, now owned by P&H.
The court-appoiinted receiver for bankrupt Sunterra hog operations in South Dakota is proposing to sell them to The Pork Group, a subsidiary of Tyson Foods.
The $12-million bid includes sow farms, finishers, equipment, and support structures.
Compeer Financial has sued Sunterra for $36 million, alleging it committed fraud through forged financial statements and inflated sow numbers.
The receivership and liquidation come after a federal judge froze assets linked to the alleged fraud scheme, citing serious financial misrepresentation and breached loan covenants. The operations were originally run under a network that included links to the Sunterra Group, an Alberta-based pork company with U.S. production ties.
Poppies Mini Éclairs are under recall because of potential contamination with food-poisoning E. coli.
Two Dutch foods are under recall because the packages may contain pieces of rubber.
There has been an outbreak of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus at a farrow-to-finish operation in the Golden Horseshoe, reports Swine Health Ontario.
It is the fifth case this month.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has finally posted information about a fine nine months after the court decision involving Canadian Select Meats and Ryding-Regency of Toronto.
Canadian Select Meats Inc., pled guilty to two counts of contravening the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations between May 10, 2018, and September 20, 2019. The Court imposed a total fine of $650,000, the CFIA posting this week said.
I obtained court documents and reported the results and fine in mid-January. That was after the CFIA failed to provide the information.
“On the first offense, for providing false or misleading information and/or statements to a Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) inspector under Section 15 of the Safe Food for Canadians Act (SFCA), the Court imposed a fine of $325,000,” the CFIA post said.
“On the second offense, for failure by the operator to immediately notify the Minister and take immediate action to mitigate the risk after establishing that food presents a risk of injury to human health under Section 82(2) of the SFCR, the Court imposed a fine of $325,000.
Saskatchewan Agriculture said a cow died of anthrax and is advising farmers to consider vaccinating their herds if the bacteria surfaces near their farms.
This case was in the Rural Municipality of Paynton, northwest of North Battleford.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew held a news conference in Toronto to sign a trade agreement that scraps a number of barriers, such as direct wine, beer and spirit sales to consumers in the other province and acceptance of professional licences and standards, such as engineers working on construction projects.
But there was no mention of bans on trading supply-management quotas for farmers and for dairy and chicken processing companies.
They said they hope all other provinces follow suit.
Sylvain Charlebois, a leading academic on food prices, is challenging Prime Minister Mark Carney to reform supply management, particularly for dairy.
Canada’s trade protections for dairy and poultry farmers has been a consistent source of complaints during negotiations for trade agreements, particularly with the United States.
Prime Minister Carney must put dairy reform back on the table, regardless of campaign promises. The dairy sector represents just one per cent of Canada’s GDP, yet its outsized influence on policy continues to distort economic priorities — benefiting fewer than 9,000 farms out of more than 175,000 nationwide, Charlebois has written,
This is not sustainable. Many Canadian producers are eager to grow, trade, and compete globally, but are held back by a system that prioritizes insulation over opportunity, he wrote.,
It’s also time to decouple dairy from poultry and eggs, which — though also supply-managed — operate with far more vertical integration and competitiveness. Industrial milk prices in Canada are nearly double those in the U.S., undermining both our domestic processors and consumer affordability, he wrote.
He said Canadian dairy farms continue to disappear despite the claim by farmers that supply management was needed to keep them viable. There are now about 9,000 left and half of them could soon be gone, he argued. There are about 176,000 Canadian farmers,
He said 40 per cent of Canadian milk is produced in Quebec, although it has 20 per cent of the Canadian population. He argued that is not fair to producers in other provinces.
He said supply management has tied up more capital in quota and land and has diverted attention from more pressing trade and diplomacy challenges with India and China.
It's nice to have another leader in opposition to supply management. I was rather lonely for about 20 years from the mid-1970s, arguing that supply management did not really help the average to smaller-scale farmers, but locked everybody into a system that could collapse.
Without supply management, each farmer would have been free to explore options, but with supply management, there was only the expensive, bureaucratic quota route.
Per Bank, head of Loblaws, said food prices will rise because of Canadian 25 per cent tariffs on foods from the United States.
“While the tariff situation might be improving between the U.S. and other countries, that’s not yet the case here in Canada. In fact, we’ll be facing a large wave of tariff-related increases in the weeks ahead,” he said.
Tariff-affected items will still account for a small share of the roughly 80,000 items the company stocks, but customers will notice changes in categories including natural foods, pantry staples and health and beauty products, he said.
That’s despite strong opposition from property owners and the community when the plan was revealed.
The Walrus publication has said it learned that the site is for Toyota which owns assembly plants in Cambridge and Woodstock.
Secrecy surrounded the project as municipal councillors have signed non-disclosure agreements.