Livestock

British Columbia will put up over $3 million more for a program to help meat processors upgrade their facilities or become fully licensed. The extra cash announced Tuesday raises the total funding available through the B.C. meat transition assistance program (MTAP) to $11.9 million, the province said. “We’re investing more to help processors finish getting […] Read more

The Alberta government plans to pare back its spending on agriculture and rural development to about $1.14 billion in the coming year, down from its projected 2008-09 expenses of almost $1.4 billion. That will include a net reduction of 91 employees, following both the province’s “value review” of the department and the establishment of the […] Read more

Farmers and other residents of Manitoba’s Interlake and Westlake regions who took the brunt of overland flooding from heavy rains in 2008 are now eligible for more disaster financial assistance. The provincial government on Tuesday announced DFA program funds for the flooding last August and September will increase to $3 million from $670,000. “The provincial […] Read more

The Ontario government plans to invest $24 million over three years in the logistics needed to put Ontario-grown food into schools, hospitals, other institutions and the food service sector. “Ontario’s food producers grow, raise and produce fresh, high-quality food products that are among the best in the world,” provincial Ag Minister Leona Dombrowsky said in […] Read more

The federal government’s plan to diversify regions of British Columbia where infestations of mountain pine beetle have hit the forestry sector will include funds for a mobile poultry-processing unit. The federal Western Economic Diversification department will put up $220,000 through its two-year, $33 million Community Economic Diversification Initiative (CEDI), for the Cariboo-Central Interior Poultry Producers […] Read more

Funeral services were held Saturday at Wingham, Ont. for former Ontario agriculture critic and respected farm broadcaster Murray Gaunt, who passed away in hospital at London on March 31 at age 73. Gaunt, who received his Ontario Agricultural College diploma in 1956, farmed and then worked for a few years in farm radio and TV […] Read more

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has lifted all its remaining restrictions on shipping or movement on birds and bird products in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley. The restrictions were put in place following the discovery of low-pathogenicity (“low-path”) H5N2 avian influenza at an Abbotsford-area commercial poultry operation on Jan. 24. Out of that investigation came […] Read more

Market research suggests Canada’s turkey consumers may better relate to the Canadian Turkey Marketing Agency’s (CTMA) work, now that it’s stuffed its name with farmers. Made effective March 26, the agency now known as Turkey Farmers of Canada (TFC) said in a release that the name change “better reflects our organization’s membership and business activity.” […] Read more

A subcommittee of the House of Commons’ standing committee on agriculture plans to deliver a report on Canada’s food safety system, with a focus on last August’s listeriosis outbreak, by this summer. The work schedule for the subcommittee’s study, not to be confused with the government-commissioned Weatherill investigation on the listeriosis outbreak, was agreed upon […] Read more