U.S. dairy producers are reporting high onset of and high morbidity from Texas Agalactiae Syndrome, with confirmed cases in Texas, Kansas and New Mexico. Lactating cows are considered particularly vulnerable.

Clinical signs include:

• Decreased herd level milk production
• Acute sudden drop in production with some severely impacted cows experiencing thicker, concentrated, colostrum-like milk
• Decreased feed consumption with a simultaneous drop in rumen motility
• Abnormal tacky or loose feces and some fever

The Texas Animal Health Commission says symptoms of the disease last between 10 and 14 days. The exact cause of the illness is undiagnosed and still unknown.

Affected producers have reported older cows in mid-lactation may be more likely to be severely impacted than younger cows and fresh cows or heifers.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) says there is no indication this is a foreign animal disease.

Producers are being asked to be diligent in their farm level biosecurity, especially with individuals that have recently been in the U.S. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has also asked for heightened border controls around people who have been on farms in the U.S.

Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) recommends limiting animal movements from U.S. sources.

If animals are brought from the U.S., they should be quarantined on-farm and monitored very carefully for any illness symptoms, especially those listed above.

Producers are also asked to report any potential symptoms to their local veterinarians. If your animals are exhibiting the above symptoms, do not consume any raw milk.

DFC is working with CFIA to monitor the situation and will continue to update should there be further developments.

—Jeff Melchior writes for the Alberta Farmer Express

The post Dairy farmers urged to be on lookout for U.S. disease appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Denmark, a major pork and dairy exporter, could become the first country in the world to levy an emissions tax on farming, a move that has broad political backing in the country, after New Zealand last year pushed back such a tax to the end of 2025.

A carbon tax on farmers could help Denmark achieve its legally-binding 2030 target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent from 1990 levels.

But such a measure would also mean higher costs for farmers and as a consequence reduce production by as much as one-fifth, a government-commissioned group said in a report on Wednesday.

A tax of 750 Danish crowns (C$147) per million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted would have the biggest impact. The group also considered lower taxes of 375 crowns and 125 crowns.

“These models are based on something very disappointing, namely that climate reduction can only come by reducing production,” Peder Tuborgh, CEO of dairy producer Arla Foods, told Reuters.

Tuborgh said new technologies had helped Arla’s 9,000 farmers in Denmark, Sweden, England, Germany and Benelux reduce emissions by 1 million tons in the last two years.

“There is an innovation path,” he said. “We would like to continue that journey, rather than having to shut down our production.”

More than half of Denmark’s land is farmed, with agriculture accounting for about a third of the country’s carbon emissions, according to Danish climate think tank Concito.

The agriculture sector has become a political battleground as the European Union strives to meet its net zero emissions target by 2050. Farmers across the bloc have been protesting for weeks, saying they are facing rising costs and taxes, red tape, and excessive environmental rules.

The scenarios laid out by the government advisors would reduce agricultural production by between six per cent and 15 per cent, with cattle and pig production falling by around 20 per cent under the harshest taxation scenario.

“It will be relatively dramatic if we chose to go down that path,” Jais Valeur, CEO of Europe’s biggest pork producer Danish Crown, told TV2.

“It’s key that we encourage our best farmers to become better so that we can lead the way for a sustainable transition,” he said.

–Reporting for Reuters by Isabelle Yr Carlsson, Louise Rasmussen and Stine Jacobsen.

The post Danish farmers concerned carbon tax will lead to lower production appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

David Wiens, who farms with his brother at Grunthal, Man., about 50 km southeast of Winnipeg, replaces Pierre Lampron, an organic dairy farmer in Quebec’s Mauricie region and DFC president since 2017.

Wiens, a director with Dairy Farmers of Manitoba since 1995 and its president since 2006, was named a director on DFC’s board in 2009 and became its vice-president in 2011.

At the time of his election as DFC president, Wiens was also chair of DFC’s proAction committee, the Canadian Dairy Research Council and the DFC committee reviewing and updating Canada’s code of practice for the care and handling of dairy cattle.

“Our industry is at a crossroads, we face numerous challenges, but there are also opportunities which we must seize,” Wiens said in a release Wednesday.

“Dairy farmers are the first link with milk production in bringing highly nutritious dairy products to consumers. Yet, we rely on our dairy processors as key partners in the supply chain. It is in the overall sector’s interest to adopt collaborative approaches to meet the expectations of Canadians.”

DFC’s board of directors for 2023 also includes Sarah Sache (B.C.), Wim Van De Brake (Alberta), Matthew Flaman (Saskatchewan), Stefan Singer (Manitoba), Gilbert Matheson (New Brunswick), Greg Archibald (Nova Scotia) and Steve Reeves (Prince Edward Island).

Ontario is represented on the DFC board by Vicky Morrison, Mark Hamel and Don Gordon, and Quebec by Daniel Gobeil, Peter Strebel and Marcel Blais. A director representing Newfoundland and Labrador was not named Wednesday.

Lampron, who’d been on the board of Producteurs de lait du Quebec since 2000, remains present at the national ag policy level, having been named in Feburary as second vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Manitoba dairyman named to lead national body appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“I think that we’ve come to a very solid revised code,” David Wiens, DFC’s vice-president, said in an interview.

The National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) on Thursday released its revised Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Dairy Cattle, to take effect on April 1, 2024.

The code forms the backbone of DFC’s proAction quality assurance program, to which all dairy farms must adhere.

Key changes to the code involve a timeline to eliminate tie-stall housing for cows, a system in which the animals are tethered continuously or for long periods. Effective April 2027, cows may not be tethered continuously. New barns will be required to allow “daily, untethered freedom of movement and social interactions year-round,” the code says.

By 2031, calves will be required to be housed in groups or pairs by four weeks of age. If they’re housed outdoors or in hutches, they may only be tethered if they can move in and out of the hutch. They must also be able to have physical contact with another calf, unless they need to be separated for health and safety reasons.

“Both of these changes are supported by science in terms of promoting good overall animal welfare,” Wiens said.

Both changes garnered praise from Humane Canada, a federation of humane societies and societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCAs). Humane Canada is one of the founding members of the NFACC and sat on the committee that oversaw the code’s revision.

“Overall we feel positive about the improvements in the code,” said Kathy Duncan, director of national programs with Humane Canada.

Nearly two thirds of Canadian dairy farms use tie-stall housing, Duncan said, and the previous code of contact took no steps toward eliminating the practice. Though Humane Canada is disappointed in the length of the phase-out periods for the changes, she said they are steps in the right direction.

“There are a number of areas of improvement,” Duncan said.

She highlighted added requirements that are intended to address animal abuse and work to ensure low-stress handling.

“We’ve seen some pretty horrific video of different types of handling on-farm and in slaughter,” Duncan said.

There are also stronger requirements and recommendations for oversight of farm workers.

Allowed stocking density will also decrease to 1.1 cows per stall in a free stall system from 1.2 cows per stall, effective April 2027. As of April 2031, that will be reduced to one cow per stall.

Wiens said he already stocks below the allowed rate.

“We find that cows are actually more productive at a slightly lower stocking rate,” he said.

The 2023 code notes that with lower stocking rates, cows have more access to feed bunks and can spend more time lying down — particularly for less dominant cows.

The code doesn’t include requirements for emergency preparedness planning, which is a disappointment, said Duncan. She pointed to the 2021 floods in B.C., which inundated many farms, including dairy farms. Many animals died, and other were left stranded and in dire need of food and water, according to one CBC report from November 2021.

The code contains many recommendations for emergencies, including the suggestion to develop a plan for evacuating cattle. It references “comprehensive resources to support emergency planning” that are separate from the code.

The code attracted “overwhelming interest” from Canadians, Duncan said.

Nearly 6,000 individuals or groups responded during the public consultation for the code, NFACC documents show. Forty per cent identified as dairy producers, just over 31 per cent were concerned citizens or animal welfare advocates, and just over 17 per cent identified as consumers.

— Geralyn Wichers is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator.

CLARIFICATION, April 4, 2023: A previous version of this article stated the updated code would require the elimination of tie stalls as of April 2027. Specifically, the code calls for elimination of tie stall housing, meaning the continuous or lengthy tethering of dairy cows in their stalls. The article has been edited to further clarify.

The post Continuous tie-stall housing to be phased out in new dairy code of practice appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The Canadian Dairy Commission said Tuesday it will recommend that the farm gate price for milk be increased effective Sept. 1 by $1.92 per hectolitre.

That increase, which works out to 1.92 cents per litre, “will partially offset increased production costs due to inflation,” the CDC said in a release, noting the costs of cattle feed, energy and fertilizer costs have risen 22, 55 and 45 per cent respectively since last August.

The CDC on Tuesday separately announced an increase to its support price for butter, also effective Sept. 1, boosting that rate from to $10.0206/kg, up from $9.7923.

The new farm gate milk prices are to become official on approval from provincial dairy authorities, which is expected in mid-July, the CDC said.

The Sept. 1 milk price adjustment translates to a 2.5 per cent increase on average for the price for milk used in the manufacture of retail and foodservice dairy products such as milk, cream, yogurt, cheese and butter, the commission added.

The farm gate price for milk is typically raised or lowered just once a year at the CDC to reflect changes in costs of production — a schedule Dairy Farmers of Canada said “creates a gap between the true costs of producing milk today and the next annual adjustment.”

DFC had said June 2 that the current “exceptional circumstances” call for a mid-year adjustment to help bridge that gap. The last such mid-year adjustment was made in 2018, the CDC said.

The CDC said Tuesday it “considered possible impacts of a price increase on consumers and demand” in its decision.

Dairy products “must remain affordable” for Canadians, the commission said, also noting dairy farmer revenue had improved in recent months on last February’s farm gate price increase as well as rising world dairy prices.

Factors such as transportation, distribution and packaging costs elsewhere along the supply chain will also play parts in the “net impact” on consumers, the commission said.

Make allowance

According to the Dairy Processors Association of Canada (DPAC), the CDC’s separate increase in the support price for butter works out to 2.3 per cent, reflecting both the mid-year farm gate milk price increase and an increase in the regulated “make allowance” of butter of 2.5 per cent.

The support price for butter is used by the CDC when buying and selling butter under its domestic seasonality program, which kicks in when regulated Canadian milk production exceeds domestic market requirements, at which point the CDC buys butter from processors at the established support price.

The make allowance, or processor margin, refers to the costs incurred to process milk into butter, including labour, packaging and other inputs.

DPAC said Tuesday it had asked the CDC, during its consultations last week, to consider making an upward adjustment in the make allowance. It cited estimates which suggest processor costs have risen more than 12 per cent since last August, mainly on prices for energy, packaging and materials as well as milk.

As for the farm gate milk price increase, DPAC said it doesn’t traditionally take a position for or against an adjustment the CDC recommends.

However, DPAC said, making a mid-year adjustment “will allow for dairy prices to increase more incrementally, and may mitigate the impact on consumers.”

The CDC said Tuesday that while the consumer price index for dairy has increased by 7.7 per cent over the last five years, it rose 14 per cent for meat, 21 per cent for eggs and 32 per cent for fish over the same period.

Over the last 12 months, it noted, farm gate milk prices in the European Union have risen by about 23 per cent. Class I (fluid milk) and class IV (butter and skim milk powder) prices in the U.S. have risen by 49 per cent and 55 per cent in the same period, compared to 6.6 and 38.3 per cent in Canada. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

CORRECTION, June 21: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the per-litre value of the announced milk price increase as 0.192 cents.

The post Mid-year farm gate price hike approved for milk appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The CDC said June 2 it had received a request from Dairy Farmers of Canada for the increase “due to the current inflationary environment.”

If it’s approved, and if the approval sticks to what DFC is requesting, the increase would take effect Sept. 1 and would be deducted from any increase coming out of the CDC’s “routine” milk price review this fall.

The CDC said its board will consult with stakeholders on the matter from Monday to Wednesday next week (June 13-15) and will announce its decision “in the days following these consultations.”

Normally, DFC said in a separate statement June 2, the CDC adjusts dairy farmgate prices once a year to reflect changes in costs of production, based on “numbers from the past year.”

Those numbers, DFC said, “do not reflect the current prices of inputs, which are skyrocketing.” Between last July and this March, costs have risen on inputs such as fertilizer, fuel and cattle feed, by 44, 32 and eight per cent respectively, DFC said.

The CDC pricing methodology “creates a gap between the true costs of producing milk today and the next annual adjustment,” the dairy farmer group said, and the current “exceptional circumstances” call for a mid-year adjustment to help bridge that gap.

Canadians, DFC said, generally understand dairy farmers “are not the cause of food inflation but have to adapt to the current reality just like everyone else,” and dairy farmers also understand the pressures consumers “in all walks of life” face right now.

“It is important to note that dairy farmers do not set prices at retail, or in foodservice, and the farmgate price of milk is just one of the many factors that go into the cost structure for the price paid by consumers for dairy products,” DFC added. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Dairy farmers seek mid-year increase on farmgate milk prices appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

A post-Brexit shortage of workers, exacerbated by the global strains of the COVID crisis, has sown chaos through supply chains for everything from fuel and pork to poultry and bottled water, raising concerns growth could be crimped.

One fourth-generation dairy farmer who owns a Holstein Friesian herd in central England was forced to dump 40,000 litres of milk in the past two months when no driver turned up to collect it.

“It’s cutting, it’s emotionally draining when you’re producing milk and at the end of the day you have to pull the plug and it has to go,” said the farmer, who asked not to be named due to concerns about the impact of negative publicity on contractors.

The farmer was forced to destroy four milk loads in the past two months due to shortages though in an entire career of 45 years he can remember doing it only two or three times before — and then due to bad weather.

The United Kingdom produced 15.3 billion litres of milk last year so supplies are not yet threatened, though the destruction of milk shows the extent of the labour problems which are straining supply chains across the land.

Distressed milk

Razor-thin margins and the perishable nature of milk mean supply shocks are quickly felt by dairy farmers, according to Peter Alvis, chairman of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers, the industry body which lobbies for farmer interests.

“I don’t think things with global supply chains have settled down again after the pandemic, and the shortage of HGV drivers is having quite a large impact,” he said.

Alvis said milk wastage was so far limited to a few incidents, though precise data is hard to come by.

In an indication of the pressures on the dairy industry, many farmers have had to turn to distress milk services, small companies set up to buy milk at lower prices and transport it to other outlets in an effort to stop it being dumped.

Rob Huntbatch, 38, rescues milk for half its normal price and turns it into curd, and typically has two hours from when a farmer calls him to pick up the milk before it is dumped.

In Cheshire alone, Huntbatch saved 160,000 litres of milk in September – an increase of 100,000 litres from the previous month – but was still unable to save 80,000 litres.

“This is only the tip of the iceberg,” Huntbatch said. “I think it will get worse – in wintertime, if there’s snow, drivers get slowed down, and it’s going to be make even more of an impact.”

The uncertainties around milk transport are combining with skyrocketing costs for farmers. Fertilizer used to grow feed for the cows, has spiked in price along with natural gas prices, and electricity prices are also jumping.

Henry Bloxham, a 61-year old Staffordshire dairy farmer who owns 250 cows, says his fertilizer prices have risen by 150% in three weeks and fuel increased by 10p a litre in the last week alone.

If costs continue at current levels, he says he will consider leaving the industry by next April.

“If we have to keep paying these costs, you will see a mass exodus of dairy farmers next summer,” he said.

— Victor Jack is a Reuters reporter in London, England.

The post British milk sours amid labour crisis appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The Quebec-based co-operative announced Tuesday it will close its Winnipeg fluid milk plant effective Sept. 24 — affecting 48 jobs — and transfer that work to plants at Edmonton, Victoria and Burnaby.

“Unfortunately, the level of investment required to maintain the plant’s competitiveness in the coming years was becoming too high,” Agropur CEO Emile Cordeau said in a release.

“We are making this strategic decision to optimize our consumer milk network in Western Canada. This will help simplify our business model and ensure our competitiveness.”

The Winnipeg, Edmonton and Burnaby plants all came to Agropur in a 2014 deal to buy Sobeys’ former Canada Safeway milk processing facilities, following Sobeys’ takeover of Canada Safeway’s stores and operations in Western Canada in 2013.

The deal to buy the plants included a supply agreement to produce milk for the retailer’s Lucerne brand under license. An Agropur representative wasn’t immediately available Tuesday to say how the Winnipeg plant’s closure will affect the Lucerne fluid milk supply chain.

Dairy Farmers of Manitoba general manager Brent Achtemichuk said via email the organization considers the plant closure “a loss for our province” but understands Agropur “had to make a business decision to consolidate operations in Western Canada.”

All dairy farmers in Western Canada share revenue collected from processing plants in the region, he said, which in turn “helps to mitigate the impact of a plant closure.”

Manitoba’s dairy farmers have enough processing capacity for milk produced in the province at this time, but “we continue to encourage processors to invest in our province,” he said.

As of last December, Manitoba’s 259 dairy farms milk about 47,000 cows in all, producing 409 million litres in the 2019-20 dairy year, supplying the Agropur facility and 10 other Manitoba processing plants.

Agropur said Tuesday it’s “aware of the impact this decision will have” and affected employees “will be able to take advantage of available programs, including employment opportunities at other Agropur sites, severance packages, and the employee and family assistance program.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Agropur to shut Winnipeg fluid milk plant appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Dairy Farmers of Canada on Thursday asked its farmer members to “consider alternatives to palm supplements” pending the outcome of a review of “issues that have been raised by consumers.”

The review comes in the wake of what DFC on Feb. 11 described as “recent anecdotal reports regarding the hardness of butter.”

Among those, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois — director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Halifax’s Dalhousie University and a columnist appearing in GFM publications — has taken to social media recently with a stack of consumers’ complaints alleging recently-purchased butter isn’t softening to a spreadable consistency at room temperature.

DFC on Feb. 11 said it was “aware” of those anecdotes and sector officials would work with experts to assess them further, but added it was “unclear whether these refer to imported or domestic butter.”

Furthermore, DFC said at that time, “there has been no recent data to show that the consistency of butter has changed, and we are not aware of any significant changes in dairy production or processing.”

Granted, “many different factors” can affect butter’s taste, texture and melting point of butter in subtle ways — factors including dairy cattle rations.

‘Not new’

Lactanet chief operations officer Daniel Lefebvre, in DFC’s release Feb. 11, said palmitic acid — the naturally dominant type of saturated fat in butter — normally fluctuates within “an expected range” on seasonal and regional variations in dairy cow diets.

That fluctuation, he said, “can influence the properties of the milk fat, which can affect the temperature at which butter will melt,” but he said “routine analyses of the fatty acid profile in milk do not indicate any increase in the proportion of palmitic acid in the past year beyond what would normally be expected.”

However, DFC on Feb. 19 announced it would set up a working group of “stakeholders and experts to assess current literature (and) gaps in data, and look into issues that have been raised by consumers.”

The organization’s move came as the discussion of palmitic acid content turned toward dairy farmers’ use of feed supplements with palm byproducts.

Palm products, DFC said, are sometimes added to rations in limited amounts to increase energy density in cow diets if needed. Dairy farmers in the U.S., U.K., New Zealand and Australia also use such products to “help provide energy to cows, and no undesirable effects have been identified arising from its use in cows’ feed rations.

DFC emphasized the use of palm fat in dairy feed “is not new and is a safe ingredient” approved by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Palmitic acid, DFC said Feb. 19, is a naturally occurring part of the fat of many plants and animals in various levels and is “different from palm fat.”

When supplements of palm fats are fed to dairy cows in Canada, DFC said, the typical amount is small and the increase in the palmitic fatty acid profile of dairy fat linked to the feeding practice is “less than three per cent.”

‘You have questions’

By Thursday, however, DFC said its farmers “have listened attentively to the concerns expressed by consumers in recent weeks over the use of animal feed supplements containing palm byproducts” — and it asked farmers to consider alternatives pending the outcome of its review.

“It is essential that decisions be made on a factual basis and that science guide our sector, hence the creation of a working group of experts,” DFC said Thursday. It reiterated that “all milk produced in Canada is as safe as always to consume and is subject to Canada’s robust health and safety standards.”

Alberta Milk concurred, in a separate statement to consumers Thursday, saying that while supplements with palm byproducts are “used globally and (are) CFIA-certified… you have questions about how it may affect your butter.

“The most important thing to our farmers, and farmers across Canada, is ensuring that we meet or exceed your expectations.”

Les Producteurs de lait du Quebec (PLQ) went half a step further in a separate release Wednesday, calling on Quebec producers to stop using such products in their rations, and asking that food processors adjust their recipes accordingly.

The Quebec organization also demanded that governments and processors impose reciprocal standards on all imported dairy goods and ingredients.

That said, PLQ added it would closely follow any recommendations from the DFC working group on the matter and “adjust accordingly.”

Beyond the butter complaints, PLQ also acknowledged some consumers have separate concerns over the environmental impact of palm production.

PLQ emphasized that the ingredient used in dairy cow rations isn’t pure palm oil, but rather a byproduct — but it also called on the food processing sector to pay attention to the wide use of palm oil in foods. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Dairy farmers asked to pass on palm byproducts in rations, for now appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Tuesday laid out further specifics for the Dairy Direct Payment Program, which is set to start in the 2020-21 program year with direct cash payouts totalling $468 million.

But to get their 2020-21 payments, eligible dairy farmers will have to register with the program’s administrator, the Canadian Dairy Commission, by March 31 this year — and then re-register again by the same date in 2022 and 2023 to be eligible for payments in those program years.

Signed registrations must be received at the CDC no later than that date each year, the commission noted.

The CDC said it will collect information from provincial milk marketing boards on licensed quota holders, then calculate those quota holders’ individual payments based on the percentage of each producer’s provincial quota holdings.

These direct payments are meant to clear out a $1.75 billion federal compensation package announced in August 2019 for supply-managed dairy farmers’ market share lost in Canada’s multilateral trade deals with the European Union and Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bloc (CETA, CPTPP).

Following an initial cash payment worth $345 million in 2019-20, Bibeau in November last year committed to roll out the remaining funds as direct payments over three years, down from the eight-year stretch originally planned.

Beyond the 2020-21 program year, the dairy direct payments are expected to total $469 million in 2021-22 and $468 million again in 2022-23.

Eligible recipients in a given Dairy Direct Payment program year must have a valid dairy quota license for cows’ milk, registered with a provincial milk marketing board or agency, as of Oct. 31 that year. That group includes producers operating with loaned quota under a new entrant assistance program, and/or whole-farm leases with loaned quota, as of that date.

There is no maximum payment per farm, the CDC said; the payment amount depends on the quota held at Oct. 31 of each program year. An eligible producer with 80 cows could expect around $38,000 in each of the program years.

The payments to eligible producers under the program will be treated as income in the year the payment is received — and income tax will be assessed on the payments accordingly, the commission said.

Bibeau on Tuesday also reiterated $691 million is still coming in the form of 10 years’ worth of programs for Canadian chicken, egg, broiler hatching egg and turkey farmers, also as compensation for CETA and CPTPP.

Those programs’ specs are to be “designed in consultation with sector representatives and launched as soon as possible,” the government said.

The government also reiterated Tuesday it “remains committed to providing full and fair compensation” for supply-managed farmers who saw further market share ceded under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) — as well as compensation to affected processors of supply managed products. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Dairy farmers must register to get further trade compensation payouts appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.