PED may have come from China

Speculation that Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus hitchhiked from China to the United States got a boost from research by Dr. Scott Dee of Pipestone Veterinary Services at Ottumwa, Iowa.

Dee found that conventional soybean meal, organic soybean meal, lysine, Vitamin D, and choline chloride all created a PED-friendly environment, while in the other ingredients the virus died. Dee’s work was published Saturday in BMC Veterinary Research.  

“In the presence of certain feed ingredients, under conditions that simulate a trans-Pacific journey,” Dee said, “contaminated feed ingredients, if they're the right ones, could have certainly supported virus survival throughout this entire 37 day trip.

Brian McCluskey, executive director for science, technology and analysis services for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said Dee’s work supports the government’s findings on possible ways the virus could have entered the country, but that it has not yet convinced the agency of PED’s root cause.

About seven million piglets have died in the United States since the virus arrived. The epidemic has waned this winter and may now be under reasonable control.

It entered Ontario via plasma from dead pigs that was supposed to be safe to use as a feed ingredient. It is still showing up in some herds this winter, but Ontario has a strategy to eliminate the disease and it appears to be working. 

There have been 93 outbreaks in the province, far more than any other part of Canada.

“It is evident from [Dee’s] research and some of ours that the PED virus can survive in feedstuffs and the containers that deliver the feedstuffs for the time it takes to transit from Asia to the U.S.,” McCluskey said in a statement. 

“This is still not conclusive evidence that PED virus arrived in the U.S. by one of these pathways.”

Dee’s study also tested two treatments and found that each of them could kill the PED virus if applied to a contaminated ingredient.

Dee said he hopes his findings will lead to more research on animal diseases that have not yet made the leap here from other continents, such as foot and mouth disease and African swine fever.

About 17,000 seasonal workers coming this year

Approximately 17,000 seasonal workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad-Tobago and the Eastern Caribbean States are expected to be placed at Ontario fruit and vegetable farms this season, says Ken Forth, president of the Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services.

They will work at about 1,450 farms where the owners have been unable to find Canadians to do the work.

I find this hard to believe, especially given the recent arrival of 25,000 refugees from Syria. But, then again, the Syrians have choices about where they will work; those brought in under the seasonal worker program have only one choice - to stay and work, or be shipped back home. They cannot change employers.

It is, to my mind, close to slavery. Most - but probably not all - of the farmers treat their workers well. 

If they are good enough to work here, they should be good enough to be allowed to be landed immigrants and then Canadian citizens. My father came to Canada in 1928 under a farm worker program. The farmer paid his passage from Germany and he, in return, worked for a year at half wages.

This is the 50^th anniversary of the Seasonal Foreign Workers Program that the federal government began in 1966 with 263 workers from Jamaica.

“We’re extremely proud that we’ve been able to help our horticultural industry thrive and grow over the past half century,” says Forth.

“Ontario produces some of the highest quality fruits and vegetables in the world. Without the supplemental labour they hire through SAWP, many of our growers just wouldn’t be able stay viable.”

The program provides Ontario farmers a steady source of reliable, skilled and professional labour, says F.A.R.M.S.

“At the same time, the program has given seasonal agricultural workers employment, benefits and educational opportunities not available to them at home.”

Maple syrup season ending

Maple syrup production is ending after one of the shortest runs in recent years.

Last year sap began to run at mid-March and syrup was being made well into April.

This year it’s over with less than half a normal crop put away.

Some early birds got a brief run of weak sap in mid-February, but then their trees and equipment got hit by a brutal cold snap.

Most waited until near the end of February and then weather turned unusually warm without the overnight below-freezing temperatures that make for the best runs.

This year’s short season and small crop should enable Quebec to clear its inventories. 

It has adopted supply management in an attempt to bolster prices and profits, but it’s a controversial policy because a recent report warns that it’s enabling others to gain market share.

New co-op seeks to export hay

The Ontario Forage Council has formed the Ontario Forage and Hay Cooperative to look for export markets for hay. 

Co-op chairman Fritz Trauttmansdorff of Wellington County says new, cheaper on-farm hay-drying systems are making hay an attractive cash crop.

“Logistics are changing in our favour so that gives us an opening to put hay as a sustainable cash crop into our corn, beans and wheat rotation and it’s good for our soils and hopefully for our pocketbooks,” he told CKNX, Wingham. 

The hay cooperative plans to create a central compacting facility for hay dried on farm.

First the co-op is planning a feasibility study, then will develop a business plan and then start seeking export markets.

Trauttmansdorff says China alone imports $3 billion worth of hay a year.

If a lucrative export market can be developed, putting hay into crop rotations will improve soil quality, reduce erosion and sequester carbon.

FCC increases funding for young farmers

Farm Credit Canada is adding $500 million to its fund to finance young farmers, bringing the total to $2 billion.

The program the FCC launched in 2012 has already loaned $1.3 billion to farmers younger than 40.

Most use the loans of up to $500,000 to buy assets, such as land, buildings and quota.

I find this eerily similar to the early 1970s when farm prices and profits were rising and farming-family sons got interested in farming.

Farm Credit Canada adopted a relatively aggressive lending policy for them, they went head over heels into debt and then the markets turned.

Crop and livestock prices dropped and interest rates climbed.

The result was a record number of farm bankruptcies, including almost all of those young farmers who had scant equity. And the Farm Credit Corporation, as it was then called, was technically bankrupted, saved only by more than $1 billion in federal support.

The catastrophe was tragic. There were suicides. New counselling services were established. 

I say, yet again, that the federal government should sell Farm Credit Canada so shareholders, not taxpayers, take the hit for its aggressive lending.

Commission approves Class 6 milk

 The Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission has approved the marketing board’s proposal to create a new class for milk sales. 

The Class 6 milk will be priced low enough to compete with the rising tide of imports of Milk Protein Isolates (MPIs) that face no tariffs.

The Dairy Farmers of Ontario milk marketing board also hopes the price will be low enough to entice processors to build new drying facilities to produce skim milk powder.

Milk board chairman Ralph Dietrich said many plants are 40 years old, or older. If they break down, the owners are unlikely to undertake expensive repairs.

Ontario’s move is controversial because it differs sharply with Quebec, the other major Canadian milk-producing province.

Quebec’s marketing board leaders are, instead, pressuring the federal government to change regulations so MPIs face tariffs equivalent to other dairy products and want the bureaucratic definition of cheeses to change so it’s no longer possible to use MPIs as ingredients.

The provincial division reveals a fundamental difference in marketing. Ontario seeks to hold markets by reducing prices; Quebec seeks to hold them via political power.

Ontario has yet to convince its processors that its approach will work for them. Leaders of the Ontario Dairy Council have been critical of some aspects of the Class 6 policy and so far no processors have said they will build a new drying facility.

The volume of Ontario milk that needs to be dried is increasing because demand for butter has increased, meaning there is more skim milk left as a byproduct, and because cheese makers are using imported MPIs instead of Ontario skim milk.

TPP will have minimal impact on dairy

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal will have only minimal impact on the Canadian dairy industry, says agricultural economist Richard Barichello of the University of British Columbia.

The pace of increasing Canadian demand will match the increase in market access for imports that will be allowed under the TPP. That access will be phased in over five years, roughly doubling the volume of butter to about six per cent of the Canadian market and increasing the import share of the cheese market from about four to about seven per cent.

In fact, the butter imported during 2015 is more than the increased volume allowed under the TPP.

Yet the former Stephen Harper government announced up to $4.3 billion in subsidies for Canadian dairy and poultry farmers to offset the potential impact of the TPP.

Barichello said it’s likely that milk quota prices will increase, but in Ontario and Quebec they are capped.

Dr. Richard Barichello

Al Mussell, research lead for Agri-food Economic Systems and a specialist in Canadian dairy policy, said the industry has a chance now that the trade pressure is off to reform the industry.

One thing that could be considered is increasing production, probably at a reduced price.

Barichello said there is obviously a desire by many dairy farmers to expand their operations.

He was keynote speaker for the first annual George Morris AgriFood Policy Lecture, held recently at the Cutten Club at the edge of the University of Guelph.

When the George Morris Centre closed, it provided funds to the University of Guelph to organize the annual lecture. George Morris was an innovative beef and crops farmer in the Chatham area who provided funding for an agriculture policy think tank – the George Morris Centre.

Barichello said the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, which is 3,000 pages long, is a complex document that delves into the details for many agricultural commodities and farm policies in the 12 countries involved in the negotiations.

For example, Japan and Vietnam have detailed, multi-phase tariffs and trade barriers governing imports of pork and the TPP deal spells out how much change each of those countries is to make each year until the bottom line is achieved about nine years from now.

Barichello said Canadians will have greater access to the Japanese wheat, beef and pork markets and a significant opportunity to sell pork to Vietnam.

However, these are opportunities only. To turn them into sales and revenues will require astute marketing in the face of stiff competition, mainly from the United States and Australia.

More important than the opportunities are the defenses arising from the TPP. If Canada decides to stay out, it would lose about $465 million a year in wheat exports, about $100 mlllion in beef exports and about $900 million in pork exports to Japan alone.

That’s because those markets would be taken by competitors – again, mainly the U.S. and Australia – who will gain better market access.

Barichello also briefly commented on intellectual property rights, and issue highlighted by Jim Balsillie of Waterloo, former co-leader of Research in Motion which is now Blackberry.

Barichello is far less alarmist than Balsillie, said the experts on this topic are divided in their opinions about the TPP, and said it’s an issue with some surprising impacts on Canadian agriculture.

For example, he said the Ambrosia apple variety, developed by Canadians, earns $5 to $15 million a year in royalties and fees from foreigners every year.

Cherry varieties earn about half that much annually.

The apple fees begin with signing fee per hectare, then move on to a fee per tree, an annual royalty per tree and a royalty on every kilogram of fruit marketed.

The TPP generally extends the length of patent protection.

It also moves regulations to an international level which makes it less risky because some countries and companies have been aggressive in claiming patents and applying protections.

Barichello said the same complaints Balsillie is raising have been raised by others, such as U.S. companies.

One of the risks – and one that cost Research in Motion many tens of millions of dollars – is that “patent trolls” will file lawsuits, even though they’re not using the patents, and count on support from local courts. An international body would likely be more even-handed.

In a panel discussion later with Mussel and Stephen Duff, chief policy advisor at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, all three said the attention in farm policy will be shifting from trade to domestic farm supports.

Mussell said the Business Risk Management model Canadians have developed seems to have arisen out of federal budget considerations.

Federal and provincial governments got lucky because of a long string of high grain and livestock prices, but now that they’re declining, he said there could be significant claims filed by some very large farm operations.

He questioned whether the governments have the money and the will to pony up or to continue the current level of supports in the upcoming Growing Forward time frame.

He said the United States and European Union face even bigger budget challenges from the declining grain and livestock prices. They are likely to continue their high levels of commodity-specific price supports, even though it will cost them considerable fortunes.

Canada shifted out of commodity-specific price supports in the 1970s and now farmers respond to markets when they decide what to produce.

The exception is supply management where the dairy and poultry farmers basically make their own decisions about pricing, based on what the federal and provincial governments and tariff protections will allow.

That leaves the governments with fewer policy options for domestic supports for those sectors.

Duff said there is pressure to give academics and farm organizations a better chance to influence Business Risk Management policy by allowing them to see and use the data bases the governments have developed and use in negotiating Growing Forward programs.

He said some data-sharing concessions are likely to be offered by OMAFRA.

Barichello said one factor to notice is the rising number of middle and higher-income earners in emerging economies, such as India, China and a large number of Asian countries with significant populations.

As their incomes rise, they want more proteins, such as meat, dairy and soybean products, he said. Many of these economies have annual growth rates of five to seven per cent, he said.

He is a specialist in those areas, especially as an agriculture policy advisor to Vietnam.