Livestock
Turkeys in one barn at a Kitchener, Ont. farm are confirmed to have caught the human pandemic strain of influenza A H1N1, about two months after the virus made its first known crossover to poultry. The Ontario government emphasized in a release Tuesday that food safety is not at risk, proper cooking practices destroy the […] Read more
H1N1 jumps to Ontario farm’s turkeys
Alta. land-use legislation needs more checks: study
Alberta’s plans for a new land-use planning framework need more checks and balances in order to safeguard farms and other private land from excessive regulation, a new study warns. The Frontier Centre for Public Policy last week released its review of the province’s Land Assembly Project Area Act and Land Stewardship Act, both of which, the […] Read more
Study rips B.C. farmland reserve as “failure”
A new study from a well-known pro-free-market think tank criticizes British Columbia’s Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) as a “social engineering experiment gone awry” that’s done little more than put Vancouver housing prices increasingly out of reach. The Fraser Institute’s report, released Monday, says B.C.’s ALR “has not encouraged family farming. It has not nurtured a […] Read more
Editors’ Picks: H1N1 hits first U.S. hog
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has confirmed the country’s first case of pandemic H1N1 influenza in a hog, following tests on samples collected at the Minnesota State Fair this summer. Samples collected at the fair, held Aug. 27 to Sept. 7 in St. Paul, were part of a University of Iowa and University of Minnesota […] Read more
CFA, SM5 see no input on internal trade deal
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture and supply-managed commodity groups say farmers have had no input on a revised interprovincial trade deal that carries a lot of potential downside for the ag sector. “The initiative to renegotiate the text was without any prior consultation with affected industry groups,” CFA president Laurent Pellerin said in a release […] Read more
XL’s Moose Jaw workers reject another offer
Locked-out workers at XL Foods’ beef packing plant at Moose Jaw, Sask. have voted to reject their Alberta parent company’s latest offer and keep walking the line. The workers, who have been without a contract since the end of January, came back from a five-month shutdown last month to a company-imposed lockout and then rejected […] Read more
Man. moves to ban all winter manure spreading
A complete ban on winter spreading of manure on Manitoba’s farms by 2013 is among the province’s latest regulatory bullets in what it calls its “war on phosphorus.” The province announced Friday it will implement a number of new rules for livestock waste management, also including a “minimum capacity” requirement for on-farm manure storage. As […] Read more
Sask. student’s vaccine tightens net against E. coli
Food and water around the world could soon become safer for human consumption thanks to a new cattle vaccine created by University of Saskatchewan graduate student David Asper. The veterinary microbiology student’s work, soon to be published, is premised on the idea that humans can be protected from harmful bacteria by vaccinating cattle that are […] Read more
Canadian sheep, goats part of Russian agreement
Market access for live Canadian sheep and goats in Russia has been restored as part of the agreement earlier this week on new export certificates, Canada’s sheep producers report. The 2003 closure of Russian ports to Canadian ruminants after the discovery of Canada’s first domestic case of BSE “marked not only an inability to access […] Read more
Quebec agri-food incubator officially opens doors
An agri-food incubation centre in the Centre-du-Quebec region is now open for business. The Centre d’innovation en transformation agroalimentaire de Nicolet (CITAN) was officially opened yesterday by Denis Lebel, minister of state for Canada Economic Development. It was established with $381,673 in non-repayable funding from the federal government and the Corporation de développement économique de […] Read more
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