Livestock

The Alberta Sheep and Wool Commission will officially rebrand itself Feb. 1 to reflect its producer members’ focus on the meat market. Provincial Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld on Wednesday approved an order in council to change the commission’s name to Alberta Lamb Producers, effective Sunday (Feb. 1). The commission’s directors at their Dec. 10 meeting […] Read more

Genetiporc, the hog genetics arm of Quebec’s Aliments Breton, plans to notch a “significant foothold” in the Prairie hog market by partnering with an Alberta hog production company. Genetiporc announced recently that it will partner with Dynacrest Farms to run a 3,000-sow multiplication and gilt grow-out facility to supply Genetiporc’s Fertilis 25 replacement gilts. Genetiporc, […] Read more

Staff with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have begun gassing about 60,000 birds on a southern B.C. poultry farm found to have animals infected with avian flu. CFIA and the B.C. government announced the start of the cull in a press release Monday. The euthanasia process for the birds, overseen by federal and provincial animal […] Read more

Ontario farmers who aren’t in the major provincial commodity groups but still want to register their farms with the Ontario Agri-food Premises Registry (OAPR) can now do so. OnTrace Agri-food Traceability, the industry-led, non-profit agency spearheading Ontario’s food traceability initiatives, said Monday it’s now set up to gather premises data from individual producers and issue […] Read more

An H5 strain of avian influenza has been confirmed on a commercial poultry farm in southern British Columbia, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed Saturday. “Tests to date indicate that the strain of AI in this case is low-pathogenic,” the agency said in a release. “Further testing is underway to confirm pathogenicity and to determine […] Read more

Cash-crunched cattle and hog producers now have until Sept. 30, 2010 to repay cash advances made to them under the federal Advance Payment Program (APP). Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz on Friday announced the extension of the repayment deadline for livestock advances. The first $100,000 of each producer’s advance will also continue to be interest-free, the […] Read more

The federal government now wants added certification on imports of live horses from the U.S., in the wake of an equine venereal disease turning up south of the border. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) found before Christmas that farms in Ontario and Alberta received semen last spring taken from one of three Kentucky stallions […] Read more

A “routine” detection of listeria at one of Maple Leaf Foods’ processing facilities in Toronto shows its overhauled food safety protocols are working as they should, the company said. Ordinarily, other than a quick recall announcement, findings of listeria at food plants rarely linger in the national news. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency last week […] Read more

Staff from Nova Scotia’s labour and workforce development department have gone to Kentville to start meeting with about 300 workers facing layoffs from two major poultry processing plants. ACA Co-operative plans to permanently close its money-losing Eastern Protein Foods, putting almost 190 people out of work by early March, the co-operative’s management told reporters Thursday. […] Read more

British Columbia’s former agriculture minister, Abbotsford-Clayburn MLA John van Dongen, will handle the portfolio on an interim basis following the death of Agriculture Minister Stan Hagen. Hagen, 68, died suddenly Tuesday in Victoria, reportedly of a heart attack. Currently in Premier Gordon Campbell’s cabinet as solicitor general and minister for public safety, van Dongen was […] Read more