Livestock

A cheesemaker in Quebec’s Outaouais region has picked up public funding for the equipment to make cheeses from ewes’ milk, and to bring its products to market. Fromagerie Les Folies Bergeres, which officially opened Friday at Saint-Sixte, about 50 km northeast of Gatineau, will get $100,000 in non-repayable funding through Canada Economic Development’s Community Diversification […] Read more

Saskatchewan’s five-month pilot program to protect livestock by thinning out the predator coyote population has paid out incentives on over 71,000 sets of paws. The province on Wednesday released the rough count on the uptake from its coyote control program, which ran from November 2009 through to the end of March 2010 and paid hunters […] Read more

An eastern Ontario company that offers freezing and packing services to meat packers and other processors has picked up public funding for new refrigeration equipment. Canadian Blast Freezers, based at Quinte West, about 20 km west of Belleville, will get $620,820 from the provincial Eastern Ontario Development Fund for its two-year expansion project. By introducing […] Read more

A system to help dairy farms in Atlantic Canada gauge their greenhouse gas output, then create offset credits by reducing it, will be tested in New Brunswick with provincial funding. The New Brunswick environment department’s Climate Change Secretariat on Thursday pledged $50,000 for the Atlantic Dairy and Forage Institute to test its greenhouse gas quantification […] Read more

A secondary meat processor setting up shop at Chicoutimi has picked up a $302,000 federal loan toward its processing equipment costs. Viandomax Inc. is to specialize in processing and vacuum packing of meats using “advanced methods and state-of-the-art technology,” the federal government said in a release Wednesday announcing the loan. “This project in the agri-food […] Read more

Pfizer Animal Health will buy Canadian in a bid to expand its share of the livestock health market beyond cattle, hogs and poultry, into the farmed fish sector. New York-based Pfizer said Tuesday it has bought Microtek International of Saanichton, B.C. for an undisclosed sum, giving the buyer a stake in aquaculture vaccines, research and […] Read more

Animals on two farms in British Columbia are under quarantine and being tested for brucellosis after three slaughter cattle from the farms tested as “reactors” to the disease in the U.S. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed Wednesday it has started a disease investigation on both farms after the three beef cows were screened during […] Read more

New Brunswick’s agriculture department will put up $1 million in further funding for a pair of programs to help farmers buy “genetically superior” breeding livestock and develop new farmland. The province’s Livestock Genetic Enhancement Initiative has so far resulted in over 3,500 breeding heifers being added or retained in the province’s beef herds between April […] Read more

Citing “renewed interest,” Maple Leaf Foods has formally put its Burlington, Ont. pork packing plant back up for sale. The Toronto food firm, which had officially postponed the sale process last spring, citing “current economic conditions and credit markets,” said Tuesday it is “reinvigorating the sale process following renewed interest, including the potential of completing […] Read more