Dairy industry applauds Trump’s tariffs

 

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the United States Dairy Export Council (USDEC) have issued a joint statement strongly supporting the President Donald Trump’s decision to impose 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian dairy imports.

Trump has signed the executive order, but paused implementation until late August.

The tariff aims to gain easier access to the Canadian market.

Trump and the dairy industry have persistently complained about the way Canada administers import quotas.

The Canadian organizations that speak for dairy farmers want Canada to hold firm.

Mandatory COOL not dead

Despite repeated losses in trade decisions, the United States has leading politicians still lobbying for mandatory country-of-origin labelling of meat products.

Among them is Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, R-CALF which lobbies for ranchers and Republican Senator Mike Rounds from South Dakota.

It’s in this context that the The Meat Institute has declared its opposition to a reinstatement of the 2013 Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling .

In a release to media, the Meat Institute cited a new economic analysis by Decision Innovation Solutions that concluded such labeling measures would cost the economy $1 billion via increased expenses for ranchers, processors, retailers and consumers.

Details from the study included the following arguments:

 

• Compliance costs associated with tracking, record keeping, product segregation, labeling and verification would substantially increase costs throughout the beef and pork value chains.

• Those costs would total $1.02 billion for year one ($721 million in beef and $296 million in pork), and would escalate to $4.8 billion through five years and $10.1 billion through 10 years.

• Costs would be passed to consumers, who would pay $835 million more annually for beef and $284 million more for pork.

• Compliance costs for retailers would be $488 million the first year and $5 billion over 10 years.

• Finally, with ground beef’s dependency on imported lean beef, mCOOL compliance costs would range between $202 million and $688 million.

Julie Anna Potts, Meat Institute president and chief executive officer, said the study “proves there are real and significant costs to mCOOL,” adding that the regulation “would burden both packers and livestock producers with added costs at a time when beef packers are losing money due to the smallest herd size in 75 years causing record high prices for cattle.”

Rollins said at a public meeting in April as public meeting in April that she was a “big supporter” of the regulation, adding it was “a transparency question. … Everyone in America should know where their food is coming from.”

Rollins and USDA have pushed processors to adopt the voluntary “Product of USA” labeling program that went into effect at the start of this year, and touted 10 processors that had joined the initiative. None of them is among the top five meat packers in the U.S,

Trump hits dairy, honey with 50 per cent tariffs

United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to place a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian dairy products and honey plus a list of other products including wigs, cement and hockey sticks.

He complained about administration of tariff-rate quotas on U.S. dairy products.

He said Canada treats the European Union better than the U.S. on those tariff-rate quotas. 

They are related to separate trade agreements Canada has negotiated.

Trump used Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which allows a president to impose duties up to 50 per cent on a foreign country that discriminates against U.S. commerce.

Food prices still rising

For the 17^th straight month, grocery store prices increased by more than the general inflation rate.

The increase in June was 3.9 per cent.

Statistics Canada recorded a 2.8 per cent year over year increase in overall prices in June. In May it was 3.2 per cent.

Prices for food purchased from stores grew at a slower pace in June than in May when the increase was 4.3  per cent.

Ontario opens award nominations

 

 The Ontario government is opening nominations for the 2026 Excellence inA griculture Awards.

There are 10 categories.

• Research and Innovation Excellence

• Agribusiness Excellence

• Education Excellence

• Promotional Excellence

• Urban Agriculture Excellence

• Northern Business Excellence

• Indigenous, Métis or Inuit-Owned Business or Indigenous, Métis or Inuit Community Group

Excellence

• Women’s Farming Excellence

• Youth Excellence

• Farm Family Excellence

Nominations are being accepted until September 4.

The website is ontario.ca/excellenceinagriculture.

Anderson to head AgriCorp

 

Robert Anderson of Strathroy has been appointed to a two-year term as chairman of AgriCorp.

He is is the vice-president of operations at Nortera Foods. 

AgriCorp is an Ontario government agency created in 1997 to delivercrop insurance and other agricultural business risk management programs.

Agriculture ministers plan to double AgriStability

Canada’s agriculture ministers plan to double the AgriStability payment cap to $6 million and add paid labour by farm family members as an eligible expense.

They said after a meeting In Halifax that they intend to make the changes before the end of next year.

The priorities during the meeting of federal, provincial and territorial ministers of agriculture were business risk management, trade diversification and research and innovation.

“These priorities will guide the development of the Next Policy Framework over the coming year,” said federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald.

“The goal is to build a framework that provides the flexibility to respond to regional priorities and evolving needs of the agriculture sector while supporting long-term success and sustainability,” he said.

Democrats propose meat-packer breakups

Democratic politicians in the United States have drafted legislation to force the breakup of dominant meat-packing companies.

Democrats lack enough votes on their own to pass the bills in the House of Representatives and Senate or to over-ride a president’s veto.

They cite Cargill, JBS, Tyson and National Beef collectively owning 85 per cent of the U.S. beef market resulting in higher retail prices.

 

The Family Grocery and Farmer Relief Act imposes structural reforms to restore competition to the industry proposals

1.   Makes it unlawful for a major meatpacking conglomerate to control more than one major type of meat (e., pork, chicken, beef)

2.   Imposes hard caps on the concentration of beef markets at both the regional and national levels and authorizes the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to order divestiture from the market if those caps are exceeded;

3.   Prohibits foreign leverage over the domestic meat market, empowering FTC to protect competition and national security;

4.   Directs the FTC to enforce against discriminatory pricing practices in retail and wholesale meat markets that hit independent and neighborhood grocers the hardest;

5.   Authorizes the Small Business Administration (SBA) to provide financial assistance, loan guarantees, and technical assistance to farmers’ cooperatives and small business concerns to acquire meatpacking facilities divested under the Act; and

6.   Creates enforceable penalties for corporations that fail to properly divest, enforceable under the FTC Act.

Massive recall of Quebec meats

 

There is a recall of 66 meat products under labels Charcuterie Charlevoisienne and Joe Smoked Meat.

The producer is based in Quebec.

The Canadian Food Inspection agency detected Listeria monocytogenes food-poisoning bacteria in the products which were sold through retailers and online.

The CFIA said no illnesses have been linked to the products.

Grain Growers welcomes port plans

 

Grain Growers of Canada is welcoming an announcement that the port at Roberts Bank, Vancouver, will be improved.

The plans include a Second Narrows rail crossing.

 

As Canada’s principal gateway for grain exports to international markets, the Port of Vancouver is critical to the competitiveness of Canadian agriculture and to the government’s goal of doubling exports to non-U.S. markets by 2035, Grain Growers of Canada said.

More than half of the grain grown in Canada is exported through the port, representing approximately $35 million in grain and grain products every day.

 

Also involved are improvements at Roberts Bank Terminal 2 and the government’s commitment to developing a rail infrastructure strategy focused on capacity, reliability and resilience.

 

However, Grain Growers said the success of the Gateway Strategy will ultimately depend on addressing long-standing rail bottlenecks, beginning with the Second Narrows rail crossing. 

Prioritizing this critical project will ensure the movement of grain and other export commodities, reduce congestion, and strengthen Canada’s ability to compete in global markets.

 

Grain Growers of Canada said it looks forward to working with the federal government and industry partners to advance 

Hog rations are improving

 

There is a significant shift underway in commercial hog ration formulation,  reports Swineweb.

Independent research is confirming that targeted swine gut stabilizers provide unmatched structural protection for vulnerable herds, it reported.

It said it’s a world-wide shift as nutrition formulation teams are actively integrating these additives into elite starter and sow diets. 

The biological necessity for advanced gut stabilization is most pronounced during the post-weaning window, when piglets experience intense environmental transitions and volatile gut microbiome shifts, it said.

When these young herds encounter systemic stresses, their natural nutrient utilization rates collapse, triggering immediate body weight loss and elevating the mathematical risk of secondary bacterial breaks. 

By introducing specialized stabilizers directly into the initial creep feed, nutritionists effectively fortify the natural intestinal barrier, ensuring steady nutrient absorption even during high-density stress cycles.

Clinical tracking demonstrates that this integrated feeding strategy yields measurable improvements in commercial finishing floor throughput, it said.

Pork imports surge

 

The United States has reported a 12 per cent increase in pork exports to Canada for the first half of this year.

The total was 65,306 tonnes valued at $258.5 million US, ($362.15 million Cdn) which was 10 per cent more than the same period last year.

American agricultural economists said the Canadian market is important to avoid a backup of hog inventories.

Swineweb reports they said the cross-border volume growth is exerting a direct, positive influence on independent producer balance sheets, adding substantial per-head value to every market hog sold. 

It said as the livestock complex transitions toward late-summer marketing blocks, maintaining this steady export flow will remain vital to protecting producer operating margins from speculative downward swings.

Two research stations survive

Saskatchewan has made a deal with the federal government to take over research farms at Indian Head and Scott.

The federal agriculture department announced recently that is plans to close them but the were cries of protest frin farners,

The deal will not involve continuation of organic farming research at Swift Current.

That loss has been decried by the National Farmers Union which said decades of work to establish and maintain organic farming standards there is being lost.

Saskatchewan and the feds signed a memorandum of understanding for the deal during the recent annual federal-provincial-territorial agriculture ministers’ meeting in Halifax.

Both research farms have been operating for more than 100 years..

The MOU does not include reinstating the organic program at Swift Current.

There was no word about whether similar federal-provincial deals are in the works for other research stations the federal government intends to close.

They include food safety research at Guelph and research stations at Nappan, N.S., and Portage la Prairie, Man., and three research and development centres at Quebec City and Lacombe, Alta.

Dairy farmers fight for farm survival

 

Chantelle Leslie and Eric Leach are fighting against long odds to save their dairy farm.

They have lost their milk board licence after repeated high somatic cell counts and freezing point infractions.

Their case is now before the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal which will likely issue a decision before fall, although chairman Glenn Walker said the arguments presented by lawyers for the farmers and the Dairy Farmers of Ontario marketing board are complex and will take time to deliberate.

Lawyer Andrew Paterson pleaded for another chance to establish that they can meet quality standards.

They are both children of dairy-farming families and have 20 years of dairy farming experience of their own.

And he argued that the stresses involved with their situation have affected their mental health and the milk board could grant some form of accommodation.

Lawyer Geoffrey Spurr for the milk board argued that they were granted fair hearings and that they did not raise mental health as a factor until reaching the appeal tribunal stage. He said at best they should only expect a referral back to the milk board so it could deliberate over the issue of mental health and potential accommodations.

But he said there is no guarantee they would be satisfied by what the milk board would decide and the issue might end up as another appeal to the tribunal.

One relief they seek is to farm in a shared facility until they can get back on their feet, but Spurr said they have not applied to the milk board for that accommodation.

Tribunal member and dairy farmer Judy Dirksen questioned how they can recover because they have sold off quota and are now down to 16 kilograms and still face the challenges of meeting milk quality standards.

They have had their equipment repaired twice to address the freezing-point penalties and might face another issue in the future which would be a third milk quality infraction resulting in the loss of their licence.

Dirksen she knows from experience that maintaining a perfect somatic cell count quality standard record is challenging.

 Pederson drew attention to tribunal testimony by a milk inspector that about 15 per cent of the province’s 3,600 producers every year fall short on milk quality standards such as somatic cell counts. 

The milk board has a three strikes and you're out policy for failing to meet Grade A milk standards.

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Building codes under review

 

The Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing is inviting ideas to reduce building code regulations.

In a posting on the Environmental Registry of Ontario, the ministry said “we want your feedback on Ontario’s Building Code review so we can identify ways to reduce unnecessary costs, delays, complexity, and administrative burden, while maintaining health, safety, accessibility, and performance outcomes.”

The invitation is open until Aug. 14.

No major U.S. meat packers adopt COOL labels

 

None of the dominant meat packers in the United States have joined those who are going to label meat “Product of U.S.”

Those who have signed on with the U.S. Department of Agriculture are these 10:

•      Harris Ranch

•      One World Beef

• Upper Iowa Beef
• American Foods Group (AFG)
• Agri Beef
• FPL Food 
• Hadrick Farms
• Fort Worth Meats
• Wholestone Farms
• Harrison’s Poultry

Canadians have opposed labelling meats for country of origin because it believes some packing plants that buy Canadian livestock would stop because it would require keeping separate storage and processing lines.

Canada successfully challenged two attempts to force country of origin meat labelling. The current country-of-origin labelling is voluntary.

Ontario chicken lagging

 

The national supply-management agency for chicken has set a production goal of 5.75 per cent above base quota for October 18 to December 12, but Ontario gets only a 5.5 per cent increase.

The Ontario Chicken Farmers marketing board said demand for chicken continues to be strong. This is supported by competing meat prices, steady per capita consumption and overall positive economic indicators. 

CFIA ready to relax BSE beef bans

 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is considering relaxing bans on specified risk materials from beef so they could once again be included in non-ruminant livestock feed, pet food and fertilizer.

The bans went into effect after bovine spongiform encephalopathy was identified in t May, 2003, in the brain tissue of a cow that died in Alberta.

Federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald said lifting the bans will make it easier for Canadian beef processors to compete with the U.S.

Canada’s current enhanced feed ban took effect in 2007 to persuade the U.S. and other countries to resume buying Canadian beef.

Since 2021, Canada is considered to have negligible risk status for BSE, according to the World Organization for Animal Health, and the trading bans have been lifted.

The change in regulations would allow the sale of skulls, eyes, the nervous system, tonsils and the distal ileum portion of the small intestine the distal ileums from cattle less than 30 months old.

All of these items will still be banned from human food.

Bans will remain in effect brains and spinal cords from cattle more than 30 months old.

Beef processors and abattoirs will need a permit from the CFIA to separate and use the eligible parts from cattle aged 30 months or older.

CFIA has opened public consultation on the proposed changes. It closes Sept. 9.

Chief executive officer Andrea Brocklebank of the Canadian Cattle Association said “This is good news for our industry and our competitiveness.”

The Canadian Meat Council said the changes include “long-sought updates” to SRM requirements.

Additional costs related to removal and disposal of SRMs in Canada are estimated to cost an average of $167 per tonne, the CCA and CMC said.

Under today’s requirements, Canadian processors must discard about 57 kilograms of materials per carcass, compared to about three in the U.S.

Spud rejects could be valuable

Quebec startup ExclusiVert of Quebec is making a mobile starch extraction unit that travels from farm to farm to process cull potatoes into starch for bioplastics, paper manufacturing and other industrial products.

According to Dr. Said Elkoun, scientific director at ExclusiVert and professor at the University of Sherbrooke, Canada produces about six million tonnes of potatoes annually, and roughly 10 per cent never reach the fresh market because the potatoes are undersized, misshapen or otherwise unsuitable for sale. 

In Quebec alone he estimates between 50,000 and 65,000 tonnes of potatoes fall into that category each year.

“We saw those figures and thought there was something we could do,” Elkoun said, referring to ExclusiVert co-founders Zedou Mouliom Atangana and Juliette Clairence Mango. 

“Our idea was to move the process to the farmers instead of moving the potatoes to the factory.”

They came up with the idea based on work in Cameroon, Africa, to extract starch from cassava.

 

 

 

The National Farmers Union has made a plea for national food sovereignty in its response to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s food policy announcement and the opening of negotiations for the next five-year food policy framework.

growing local markets and regional trade, food security through food sovereignty, long-term public agriculture research and climate resilience.

Farmers need a food sovereignty policy that supports new farmers, a diversity of farm products and practices, and fair prices for the food they produce for both domestic and export markets, the NFU said.

 

The NFU is encouraging the federal, provincial and territorial ministers of agriculture to define food sovereignty as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.”

 

“A successful food sovereignty policy will address corporate power in the agriculture sector, declining farm incomes, generational renewal, and climate resilience,” said NFU vice-president Phil Mount.

 

The next five-year policy must be guided by the principles of resilience, renewal, sovereignty, and diversity,” said NFU president Jenn Pfenning,.

 

The NFU said it must prioritize five policy pillars: generational renewal,  growing local markets and regional trade, food security through food sovereignty, long-term public agriculture research and climate resilience.

What's not to like about all that? Yet the NFU is often shrugged off as too radically left wing.

Lactalis buys Oka cheese business

 

Lactalis Canada is buying Agropur’s fine cheeses division which includes the Oka brand and production facilities.

 It is a major consolidation of the Canadian dairy sector, said e-dairy news service.

The division has annual sales of about $200 million which is about two per cent of Agropur’s annual revenues.

The deal also includes a plant at Saint-Hyacinthe and involves about 400 specialized employees.

Mushroom exports escape the worst

 

Canada’s mushroom exporters are facing an 8.6 per cent anti-dumping duty on sales to the United States, far less than the 32 to 44 per cent that Giorgio Mushrooms Inc. of Blandon,  Pennsylvania, wants.

 

“Today’s preliminary determination confirms that the petitioner’s original dumping allegations were overstated,” said Ryan Koeslag, executive vice-president and chief executive officer of Mushrooms Canada. “

 

Mushrooms Canada emphasized that the United States Department of Commerce’s preliminary antidumping finding reflects the idiosyncrasies of U.S. antidumping law, rather than the commercial reality of the North American mushroom market.

 

“U.S. antidumping law contains technical calculation rules that can produce a finding of ‘dumping’ even when business sense and market realities tell a different story,” Koeslag said. 

 

“A straightforward comparison of true average U.S. prices to true average Canadian prices would show no dumping at all. The preliminary rate announced today is the product of legal methodology — not proof that Canadian growers are selling unfairly.”

 

The trade case is far from over. Commerce must still issue two final determinations and the U.S. International Trade Commission  must make a final injury determination. 

If the trade commission finds that imports of fresh mushrooms from Canada are not causing material injury or threat of material injury to the U.S. industry, any duties will be terminated.

Meat recall due to listeria

Charcuterie products sold under two brands were recalled over the weekend after a finding of Listeria monocytogenes, public health authorities announced.

Boucherie Charcuterie Lyn Tremblay Inc. is recalling Charlevoisienne and Joe Smoked Meat brands which were distributed through both food service, retail channels and online.

“This recall was triggered by test results,” the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said. “There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of these products.”

Four products were recalled:

·       Charlevoisienne’s “Lardons vrac,” a diced bacon, in  two-kilogram packages.

·       Charlevoisienne’s “Lardons,” a diced bacon, in 200-gram packages.

·       Charlevoisienne’s “Jambon Québécois à l’érable Entier,” a glazed ham, in 2.5 kilogram packages.

·       Joe Smoked Meat’s “Smoked Meat Maigre,” in 400-gram packages.

·        

Boucherie Charcuterie Lyn Tremblay Inc. is based in Saint-Urbain, Quebec, about 75 miles northeast of Quebec City.

This news was posted by Meatingplace Magazine. CFIA has yet to send out e-mails.   

Jeremy Hanson feature speaker for Grain Farmers

 

Colonel Jeremy Hanson, crew member on the space flight to the far side of the moon, will be a feature speaker at the annual Grain  Farmers of Ontario’s March Classic next March.

He was born and raised on a farm near Ailsa Craig and is an inspiration for all Ontario farm youth, said Grain Farmers chief executive officer Crosby Devitt.

Also speaking will be Kirsten Hillman, former Canadian Ambassador to the United States. She will talk about trade relationships.

Hanson will also participate in a question period.

The annual even will be Tuesday, March 23, at the Niagara Falls Convention Centre.

Love for beef persists

 

CoBank said consumers continue to pay premium prices for beef despite historically tight cattle supplies and elevated retail prices. A

Nor do they turn to alternatives such as chicken and pork as pricing would indicate.

The CoBank report said the disconnect highlights the importance of factors beyond price, including taste preferences, perceived quality, convenience, meal habits and foodservice menu offerings. 

According to CoBank, animal protein markets are becoming increasingly out of sync with changing consumer purchasing behavior. 

Supply responses vary significantly by species, creating different market conditions for beef, pork and poultry producers. The report suggests that protein purchasing decisions are influenced by a combination of economic and lifestyle factors rather than price alone.

Turkey price-fixing heads to trial

 

An Illinois federal judge has cleared the way for antitrust claims against Butterball and two other turkey processors to proceed to trial,.

But Justice Sunil Harjani dismissed similar claims against Perdue Farms and Foster Farms. 

The case that can now go to trial by jury alleges turkey producers exchanged competitively sensitive information and coordinated supply decisions to inflate turkey prices between 2010 and 2016. Defendants have denied wrongdoing.

Tyson Foods and Cargill previously settled claims with plaintiffs.

Anderson to head Agricorp

Robert Anderson of Strathroy has been chosen by Ontario Agriculture Minister Trevor Jones to be chairman of Agricorp.

He takes over from John Verkaik.

Anderson has spent more than 30 years in the Ontario food processing sector, including vice-president of operations for Quebec’s Nortera Foods. He also spent 10 years as a member of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission.

Anderson holds a bachelor’s degree in science in agriculture from the University of Guelph and is still involved in his family’s vegetable and grain farming operation.

World animal health lacking funding

The world is failing to invest in animal health despite mounting evidence that the cost of inaction far exceeds the cost of prevention, according to the annual State of the World’s Animal Health report published by the World Organisation for Animal Health.

It said animal diseases destroy more than 20 per cent of ​​global animal production.

These impacts are felt most acutely in low- and middle-income countries, where animal health plays a critical role in sustaining livelihoods, food security and economic resilience. 

Inadequately funded systems struggle to detect and respond to diseases early, while also facing challenges in maintaining animal welfare standards. it said.

Recent reductions in international aid budgets are compounding the pressure. Development assistance for health has declined to approximately US $39.1 billion in 2025, with animal health accounting for less than 2.5 pert cent of that total. 

In this context, strengthening animal health systems – the shared infrastructure that guards against naturally emerging diseases, accidental releases and deliberate biological threats alike – remains underfunded, despite their essential role in managing cross-border risks, including emerging diseases and biological threats, the report said.

Bringing Veterinary Services in every country up to international standards would cost approximately US $2.3 billion per year, less than 0.05 per cent of the US $3.6 trillion in economic losses attributed to COVID-19 in 2020, a disease that most likely emerged from an animal source, it said.

Seventy-five per cent of emerging infectious diseases in humans originate in animals, making animal health systems the world’s first line of defence against outbreaks, including a potential next pandemic. However, the report indicates that these systems are under strain, with 18 per cent of countries recently assessed showing declining veterinary capacity, and 22 per cent showing declining paraprofessional capacity.

Based on 54 countries and territories assessed by WOAH, it is estimated that an average 52 per cent budget increase would be required to meet the actual annual cost of effective Veterinary Services. 

The report calls on governments to increase funding for animal health systems and to align funding with long-term prevention rather than crisis response.