Livestock

Alberta’s cattle producers will have until individual cattle are 10 months old to apply radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to their animals, starting March 1. The provincial government said last week that it would repeal its Traceability Livestock Identification Regulation and replace it with a new Traceability Cattle Identification Regulation taking effect March 1, 2010. […] Read more

Canada’s national cattle identification agency plans to expand the hours of operation for its call centre and expand its website to include publications en francais. Starting Jan. 4, the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency’s (CCIA) call centre will operate from 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. MST at 1-877-909-2333 (BEEF). The CCIA website will also feature “numerous” […] Read more

Eight Nova Scotia agri-food companies are to share in the latest round of support from the province’s Strategic Infrastructure Investment Fund. So far, $4.25 million has been committed from the $6 million, four-year fund. The eight businesses receiving support in the program’s third year include: Foxhill Cheese House at Port Williams, to expand its processing […] Read more

Owners of some commercial rural recreational properties in British Columbia may soon catch a break on their local-level taxes going forward. Bill Bennett, the province’s rural development minister, announced last week that the province would amend tax law to allow “portions” of fishing resorts, wilderness camps and guide outfitter camps to be taxes as recreational, […] Read more

The federal government has again expanded its list of ranching areas hit by drought, floods or excess moisture, where producers of breeding livestock may now defer tax on some of their sale income for the 2009 income tax year. Four counties and a municipal district in Alberta, 68 Saskatchewan rural municipalities, 28 Manitoba RMs, an […] Read more

For a protected area that was meant to preserve southern Ontario’s farmland and agriculture, the Greenbelt doesn’t seem to have done the job for livestock producers, a new study suggests. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that “traditional” livestock operations, such as dairy, beef and hog farms, have experienced a decline throughout Ontario since 2001. But the […] Read more

The federal agriculture department’s communications chief for Quebec will take over as Quebec’s associate deputy agriculture minister in the new year. Dominique Fortin, currently the regional communications manager for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Quebec City, was named Monday as one of the senior provincial bureaucrats in the provincial ag, food and fisheries ministry (MAPAQ) […] Read more

A provincial regulation that was meant to prevent commercial “mining” of Prince Edward Island’s beach sand won’t apply to “bona fide” farmers using it for traction on their farms. P.E.I. Environment Minister Richard Brown on Friday issued a permit that allows “all bona fide farmers in the province to gather beach sand” for their own […] Read more