Livestock
Reading Time: < 1 minute The Ontario Ag Ministry will boost its limit as the guarantor for the Feeder Cattle Loan Guarantee Program to $130 million, up from $80 million. Eligible new farmers will be able to borrow up to $50,000 for cattle purchases, while established farmers can get up to $250,000. Members of one of the province’s 19 feeder […] Read more
Ontario Backs Feeder Co-Ops
Baby Bonus For Pigs
Reading Time: < 1 minute China will give pig farmers 100 yuan ($15.50) for every sow they breed to increase pork supply and cool inflation that is at a three-year high, the state council said. The government also plans to invest 2.5 billion yuan in pig farms and increase subsidies for veterinarians who fight epidemics. Pork, a staple food in […] Read more
BIXS Project Beginning “Soft Launch” With 100 Producers
Reading Time: 3 minutes Cow-calf producers often complain that all their work in animal identification helps everyone else in the marketing chain, but not them. Designers say that is about to change. The Beef InfoXchange System (BIXS), a project initiated by the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, is in the midst of the first phase of its launch with cow-calf producers […] Read more
The Perils Of Eating China-Produced Food
Reading Time: 3 minutes China’s attempt to crack down on illegal food additives is being met with somewhat poor results, even though offenders face the death penalty if convicted. Pork continues to glow in the dark, hair is made into soy sauce, and fish are fed birth-control pills. The lack of a controlling agency equivalent to the Canadian Food […] Read more
Early Nursery Performance Not Affected By Diet Complexity
Reading Time: 3 minutes Recent research by Dr. Denise Beaulieu at the Prairie Swine Centre suggests that the response of newly weaned pigs to two dietary regimes based on a simple low-cost diet and a more complex and therefore higher-cost diet is not affected by either birth weight or creep feeding. And, surprisingly, pigs fed the more complex diet […] Read more
Vietnam now open to Canada’s live cattle, sheep, goats
In what the Canadian government calls a “milestone” decision, Vietnam has become the first Asian market since 2003 to accept live Canadian breeding cattle, sheep and goats. That means Canada may now compete for its share of a Vietnamese market for live ruminants estimated as worth nearly $50 million, the government said in a release […] Read more
B.C. university backed for food research equipment
Agriprocessing companies and startups in British Columbia’s Central Interior can expect access to new testing and product research equipment through federal funding for the region’s university. Kamloops-based Thompson Rivers University has picked up about $890,000 in Western Diversification Program (WDP) funding for equipment which until now “has not been available regionally,” the government said in […] Read more
Grants to back Alta. land conservation easements
The Alberta government has budgeted $5 million this year for a new grant program to help protect “ecologically important” private lands against development. The province on Wednesday launched the Alberta Land Trust Grant Program, which is to make grants available to land trust organizations to pay for conservation easements on private land, and to manage […] Read more
Feds warned against provincial meat inspection cuts
A plan that would make three provinces end their use of federal meat inspectors and develop their own inspection regimes by the end of 2013 poses a food safety risk, opposition ag critics and the federal meat inspectors’ union warn. The Agriculture Union, the arm of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) representing federal […] Read more
Whole Foods expands animal welfare rules to Canada
U.S. organic food retailer Whole Foods Market has expanded its animal welfare rating promotion to include livestock destined for the meat cases at its Canadian supermarkets. While not likely to make massive waves in Canada’s retail sector — the chain’s Canadian footprint today includes just four stores in Vancouver and two in the Greater Toronto […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
