Livestock

Imports of horse semen and embryos from the U.S. will now need more paperwork as Ottawa looks to keep a horse venereal disease out of Canada. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) new requirements, announced Tuesday, follow an earlier tightening of restrictions Jan. 23 on imports of live U.S. horses and related animals. CFIA found […] Read more

One of Canada’s expected future free trade partners has re-opened its ports to Canadian beef and cattle, offering a potential million-dollar export market. Jordan, which in August 2008 concluded talks with Canada toward a free trade agreement, has decided to lift a ban it has had in place since Canada’s first domestic case of BSE […] Read more

An “understatement” of the tax expenses arising from the sale of its animal feed business has led Maple Leaf Foods to restate its 2007 earnings. The Toronto-based food firm sold what was then called Maple Leaf Animal Nutrition to Nutreco in July 2007 for $524.8 million, for a gain of $219.4 million, net of income […] Read more

Proteins that help regulate cells’ functions in cattle and pigs may open a new window on how animal and human diseases work and could potentially lead to new treatments. Researchers at the Saskatoon-based Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) at the University of Saskatchewan announced Tuesday they have developed a new tool, called a species-specific […] Read more

The Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency (ALMA) expects to be better able to form industry-government partnerships now that it’s incorporated, the agency said Monday. The agency, which reports to provincial Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld, got its incorporation status Monday. “This is an important step in creating a successful partnership with industry and transitioning to a […] Read more

Maple Leaf Foods and the lawyers handling several listeria-related lawsuits against the company have agreed on terms of a Canada-wide settlement deal to take to courts in three provinces for approval. The settlement, first announced Dec. 18, covers “numerous” proposed class action suits over last summer’s listeriosis outbreak, which was linked to deli meats coming […] Read more

The process of containing bird flu to a single poultry farm in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley has led federal inspectors to quarantine nine more properties on Sunday. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency reported Sunday that it has now quarantined a total of 36 premises, including the commercial farm where an H5 strain of avian influenza […] Read more

British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell has named Nanaimo-Parksville MLA Ron Cantelon as the province’s new minister of agriculture and lands, replacing the late Stan Hagen. Cantelon, an MLA since May 2005 and formerly a manager for real estate network Re/Max, entered politics in 1999 as a city councillor in Nanaimo, about 100 km north of […] Read more

Feed manufacturer Ridley Inc. has finalized its out-of-court deal to settle Canadian cattle producers’ class action suits over the discovery of BSE in the domestic cattle herd. The finalized deal will see the Winnipeg-based feed maker now pay $6 million into a trust fund, only for it to be immediately rolled over into funding for […] Read more

Canada’s beef marketers plan to replace “Make It Beef” with a new global brand logo for Canadian beef, to be used across the consumer, retail and foodservice markets. “Combined with its brand attributes, the Canadian beef brand will provide a consistent, unified voice within Canada and in the U.S., as well as other international markets,” […] Read more