Cows get high on hemp

A German study has found that cows fed hemp flowers and leaves get high and produce milk with THC, the substance that gives humans a high when they smoke or eat marijuana.

The dairy cows also showed behavioral changes — yawning and salivating a lot, moving a little unsteadily on their hoofs, standing in one place for a protracted period, and having a “somnolent appearance.”

The peer-reviewed study, conducted on Holstein cows in Berlin and published Monday in the journal Nature Food, is one of the first major investigations of the use of industrial hemp as a potential supplement in animal feed.

It’s illegal to feed cows hemp in the United States, but hemp could be an excellent source of animal feed if government regulators approve it, said Erica Stark, executive director of the National Hemp Association. The seeds of hemp do not contain any THC, she said, and are high in protein.

“It’s going to be such a really large market. There’s actually animal feed shortages in this country right now, ramifications of what’s happening in Ukraine, droughts and other crop failures,” Stark said.

The researchers at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment found no behavioral change in cows given the entire hemp plant, which contained very low levels of THC. Only when fed solely the portions of the hemp plant with higher THC concentrations — including the flowers and leaves — did the behavioral effects appear, according to the study.

Those effects included slower heart rate and respiration, “pronounced tongue play, increased yawning, salivation, nasal secretion formation,” and reddening of a portion of the eyes, the report states. Some animals “displayed careful, occasionally unsteady gait, unusually long standing and abnormal posture.”

The animals also ate less and produced less milk, according to Robert Pieper, head of the department of food chain safety for the institute and co-author of the new paper.

Migrant worker activist joins University of Guelph

Gabriel Allahdua, a migrant worker activist, has been chosen the first “activist in residence” at the University of Guelph.

His position will be in the university’s Grounded and Engagement Theory Lab. 

“It’s an emerging approach in our areas of study, and our goal is to advance it,” said Monique Deveaux of the philosophy department and co-founder of the lab.

“We hope to foster community, knowledge sharing and research collaboration by engaging in research methods that centre the voices of members of justice-seeking communities.”  

Collaboration is at the heart of the way the lab conducts its research, Deveaux said. Researchers and students listen to those in communities engaged in struggle, such as the migrant worker community.

“We want him to help us plug into the communities we are looking at in our research. He’s also going to help us establish a network in Ontario that’ll bring researchers together with activists working on common issues around migrant workers and justice for migrant workers.,” she said.

 Allahdua is from St. Lucia, has a general agriculture diploma from the Guyana School of Agriculture and was a beekeeper before enrolling in Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program in 2012. He worked in Leamington’s greenhouse sector for four years before seeking permanent residency and turning his full attention to activism. 

Now he’s an organizer with Justice for Migrant Workers and an outreach worker with The Neighbourhood Organization, which provides services to migrant workers.

 

Allahdua has also written an autobiography, Harvesting Freedom, about his experience as a migrant worker. It is scheduled for release March 7.

UPSIDE gets ok for cultivated meat

UPSIDE Foods has received approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration for the process it uses to grow meat from cells.

It is the first researcher to gain an approval that the process the company uses to grow meat from chicken cells is safe. It is not approval for the product, just the process.

The agency said in a letter to the company in California that “we evaluated the information UPSIDE Foods submitted to the agency and have no further questions at this time about the firm’s safety conclusion.”

 The firm will use animal cell culture technology to take living cells from chickens and grow the cells in a controlled environment to make the cultured animal cell food.

 The FDA's pre-market consultation with the firm included an evaluation of the firm’s production process and the cultured cell material.

The voluntary pre-market consultation is not an approval process. Instead, it means that after our careful evaluation of the data and information shared by the firm, we have no further questions at this time about the firm’s safety conclusion, the agency said.

Chicken agency dials back production

After major increases for several production quota periods in a row, the national chicken agency is adopting a one per cent increase over base for the winter production period.

Ontario’s increase will be 1.4 per cent.

The Chicken Farmers of Ontario marketing board said “the prospect of additional imports leads to a conservative approach” after saying “demand for chicken continues to be strong.”

The outlook for strong demand  “is supported by competing meat prices and overall market conditions,” it said.

                           

Politicians exempt grain drying from carbon tax

Members of the House of Commons Agriculture Committee have approved a bill that will exempt grain drying from the federal carbon tax.

It now goes to the full House of Commons for third reading and, if approved there, to the Senate.

“We were pleased with the support Bill C-234 received. . .,” said chairman Brendan Byrne of Grain Farmers of Ontario.

 

“It is clear that these Members of Parliament understand the lack of current alternatives for grain drying and the need to provide an exemption until viable technological solutions are developed. Now we need the bill to pass the House and for Honourable Senators to pass the Bill into law during the life of this Parliament.” 

He is now calling on the Senate to pass the bill expeditiously, mindful that a previous Private Members Bill on the same topic passed the House but died on the Order Paper with the dissolution of the previous Parliament for the 2021 general election.

Living wage takes huge leap

According to the latest report from the Ontario Living Wage Network (OLWN), employees in the Waterloo Region need $19.95 an hour which is 16 per cent more than last year.

The Waterloo Region government is among employers who subscribe to the living wage. Guess what that will mean for property taxes.

"It's no surprise," said Greg deGroot-Maggetti, the board president of OLWN. "We all know that this past year, we've seen a lot of inflation especially for core expenses like shelter costs and food."

Waterloo Region and Wellington County have been combined this year and Waterloo’s rate had been lower. Wellington’s increase is 10.2 per cent.

Canco labour talks problematic

The union is asking for wage increases in dollars, but Canco tomato processor is offering only pennies leading up to a strike vote on Saturday.

About 800 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union are awaiting a report from the conciliator appointed by the Ontario Ministry of Labour.

Canco bought the plant at Leamington in 2014 after Heinz shut down operations and shifted its processing to the United States. A group of plant managers and executives formed Canco to buy the plant, then they bargained hard to reduce tomato prices.

The tensions prompted the province, via its Ontario Farm Products Marketing Council, to dismiss the directors of the Ontario Vegetable Processors Marketing board and to appoint its vice-chairman, Elmer Buchanan, a former NDP agriculture minister, to negotiate a new contract.

Now it appears the company is bargaining hard with its 800 union members.