Livestock

Researchers in Guelph looking for genetic markers that would prevent “boar taint” in pork from uncastrated male pigs have picked up extra funding for their work. The Ontario Genomics Institute, a non-profit genomics research agency, has put up $100,000 for work by University of Guelph scientists Jim Squires and Flavio Schenkel. The two researchers for […] Read more

Vancouver food manufacturing firm Premium Brands has completed its deal to convert from an income trust back to a corporation. Premium Brands owns specialty food businesses in all four western provinces and Washington state including the Grimm’s, Harvest, McSweeney’s, Bread Garden, Hygaard and Hempler’s brands as well as Centennial Foodservice and B+C Foods. The company […] Read more

Atlantic Canada’s four federations of agriculture have developed an umbrella group to lobby on ag issues of common concern, regional media report. The new group, to be called the Atlantic Federations of Agriculture, had its first official meeting July 17, where all four groups’ presidents signed a memorandum of understanding, according to the newspaper Farm […] Read more

Two inspection staff with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency may be the first known cases of pandemic H1N1 influenza crossing from hogs to humans. The CFIA employees, who both have tested positive for the flu strain recently elevated to pandemic status, were working in late April on a quarantined Rocky Mountain House, Alta.-area farm which, […] Read more

Income tax deferrals are on tap for ranchers in any of four Manitoba rural municipalities who had to sell breeding livestock due to excess moisture during the 2009 tax year. Much like the program for drought-designated municipalities, ranchers in municipalities designated by the federal government can defer a portion of tax owing on income from […] Read more

The annual round of federal drought designations, which provides income tax deferrals for ranchers in affected areas, starts off this year with 26 jurisdictions in Alberta and 76 rural municipalities in Saskatchewan. Ranchers in the municipalities designated by the federal government can defer a portion of tax owing on income from breeding stock sold due […] Read more

Updated, July 22 — The outbreak of listeriosis that led to 22 people’s deaths in Canada last summer is found to have fed partly on an “insufficient focus” on food safety in the private and public sector. Advance preparation for such a problem, an appropriate sense of urgency at the outset, and communication to the […] Read more

The main hog farmers’ group in the U.S. will keep “all options open” if Ottawa gives Canadian hog producers a “cash bailout” that the group says would depress U.S. prices. The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) on Monday reviewed the Canadian Pork Council’s July 6 “Strategic Transition Plan” proposal to Canada’s federal government, and the […] Read more

The Ontario government will put up another $500,000 toward a new multi-species abattoir for the province’s northwestern Rainy River district. The investment, flowing through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. (NOHFC), will bring provincial support for the non-profit, community-owned abattoir project to $1 million, the province said Tuesday. The facility will be sited at a […] Read more

Former southern Ontario MP Bob Speller, the agriculture minister for then-prime minister Paul Martin, will again run for the Liberals in the next federal election. Speller, a businessman who represented the rural riding of Haldimand-Norfolk from 1988 to 2004, was ag minister from December 2003 until he was defeated by the Conservatives’ Diane Finley in […] Read more