The aim of the summit is to deliver progress on 17 sustainable development goals, created by the United Nations in 2015 as a wide-ranging “to-do” list including ending hunger and poverty, achieving gender equality and taking action on climate change.

Guterres told the summit — held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic on the sidelines of the annual high-level U.N. General Assembly — that food systems need to support the health and well-being of all people, protect the planet and support prosperity.

“As a global community, we need to shift our approach on agricultural subsidies, and employment support for workers,” he said. “And we need to re-think how we see and value food — not simply as a commodity to be traded, but as a right that every person shares.”

After remaining virtually unchanged for five years, world hunger and malnutrition rose last year by around 118 million people to 768 million, with most of the increase likely caused by the pandemic, according to a U.N. report.

On internationally traded markets, world food prices were up 33.9 per cent year-on-year in June, according to the U.N. food agency’s price index, which measures a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar.

“We must grow food where the environment supports it best and where emissions efficiency is greatest, while minimizing the barriers to trade and efficient distribution,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the summit.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Washington would spend US$10 billion to end hunger and invest in food systems at home and abroad. U.S. officials said half of that money would fund Feed the Future over the next five years, a U.S initiative that aims to reduce poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

The World Bank Group, International Food Policy Research Institute and the Food + Land Use Coalition introduced a roadmap at the summit that aims to show how capital can be shifted from a high-carbon, unequal, extractive food system and into models that add value for people, planet and the economy.

The said the roadmap could unlock US$4.5 trillion in new business opportunities every year by 2030 and ensure a more sustainable food system.

For their part, in a joint release Thursday, representatives from 13 Canadian primary producer and ag industry groups hailed the U.N. summit as providing the platform to “look forward and together chart an inclusive, multi-stakeholder and systems approach for the future of food.”

The groups said they “recognize that continual advances are critical to creating a more sustainable future and one that Canada will play a leadership role in.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Michelle Nichols. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The company said medical distribution from the Aurora Polaris facility that is being shut down will move to an adjacent factory, Aurora Sky, while manufacturing will move to its Aurora River factory at Bradford, Ont., north of Toronto.

“We aspire to be a leaner, more agile organization that keeps pace with our competition and is on a path to profitability,” a spokesperson for the company said in an email statement.

The company, however, did not disclose the number of employees that would be impacted by the move.

On Monday, the Edmonton-based company also delayed the announcement of its fourth-quarter earnings.

Aurora had announced staff reductions and plans to shut five facilities in June last year, hit by the pandemic’s impact on the cash-strapped cannabis industry.

Canada legalized recreational cannabis in October 2018, but profits have remained elusive for most marijuana companies due to fewer-than-expected retail stores, cheaper rates on the black market and slow overseas growth.

— Reporting for Reuters by Niket Nishant and Shariq Khan in Bangalore.

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Farm equipment maker Buhler Industries announced Friday it will halt production at the former Ezee-On manufacturing plant at Vegreville, Alta. in September 2021 and set up that plant’s tillage equipment production lines in Winnipeg.

Products to be made in Winnipeg starting next year include Versatile tandem and offset discs, vertical tillage and high-speed compact discs.

The tillage production line will be set up in the Winnipeg plant’s former component staging and storage area, a move Buhler said will improve the overall plant’s efficiency but also allow the existing tractor assembly lines to step up production by “capitaliz(ing) on existing resources and economies of scale.”

Buhler said demand for its Versatile Fury high-speed compact disc units has “drastically increased” in the past three years, largely from markets in the U.S.

The company also plans to introduce an updated Versatile Viking vertical tillage unit next year and said it expects much of the demand for that tool to come from the U.S. as well.

Making those product lines in Winnipeg “puts them significantly closer to those key markets, reducing logistics time and costs,” the company said, adding it expects “no delays in product delivery” during the move.

Sales of “legacy” tillage tools, including tandem and offset discs under the Versatile and Farm King brands, will continue, Buhler said.

Versatile’s main Canadian parts distribution warehouse, next to the Winnipeg factory, will now handle distribution of tillage parts, a move it said will improve access to an increased parts supply.

Buhler said it will also make more tillage parts available through its U.S. distribution centres at Blair, Nebraska, just north of Omaha, and at West Memphis in Arkansas. The West Memphis warehouse, starting Tuesday (Dec. 1), will be a “primary distribution point” for Versatile service parts.

The decision to halt production at Vegreville marks Buhler’s third such consolidation this year, after closing its Fargo, North Dakota plant in September and moving that work to its plant at Willmar, Minnesota — which in turn was slated earlier this month to close in early 2021.

The Willmar plant’s work is to be then moved north to Buhler’s other major manufacturing plant at Morden, Man.

The company didn’t say Friday what it plans to do with the Vegreville facility after production ends there. Buhler has owned the plant since 2011, when it bought the Ezee-On farm equipment manufacturing business from TerraVest Income Fund.

Ezee-On had made air drills, air carts, offset and tandem discs, post pounders and front-end loaders. The plant began producing tillage equipment for sale under the Versatile and Farm King brands a few months after the acquisition.

Running multiple assembly lines is also nothing new for the Winnipeg plant. Buhler, which bought the Versatile business from CNH in 2000, noted the facility’s previous “long history” making equipment such as swathers, combines, sprayers and cultivators along with its flagship tractors. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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As part of the federal pandemic response, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in early May that Ottawa would budget $50 million for a food surplus purchase program. The funding would go to buy and move large quantities of perishables deemed surplus as the pandemic shut down much of the restaurant and hospitality industries in Canada and the U.S.

The program was opened up for applications from interested non-government organizations from mid-June through mid-July and Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced the eight successful applicants Thursday at an event at St-Hyacinthe, Que.

The eight partnerships, which in all involve over 100 different organizations, are expected to address “urgent, high-volume, highly perishable” surplus.

The funding provided under the program is expected to ensure producers and processors are “fairly compensated” for their work at the cost of production, while also helping to develop relationships with community food providers and support efforts to reduce food waste, the government said.

In all, the chosen program partners are expected to redistribute about 12 million kilograms of surplus food to “more food-insecure” families — food the government said “would otherwise have been wasted.”

The chosen organizations are to leverage “existing food redistribution and recovery networks and agencies,” among them “leading not-for-profits,” which will redistribute products including, among others, potatoes, chicken, turkey, eggs, fruit, vegetables, fish and other seafood.

The program’s $50 million budget will break down as follows:

• Canadian Produce Marketing Association and charitable agencies, $11,429,926
• Food Banks Canada, $11,358,529
• Second Harvest, $11,007,095
• Fisher River Cree Nation, $10,845,048
• La Tablee des Chefs, $1,522,900
• Clearwater Seafood and Indigenous communities, $1,491,072
• Les Fermes Dani, $1,430,000, and
• Green Seafoods Ltd. and Feed Nova Scotia, $55,230.

The program “leverages the deep supply chain expertise and knowledge the food banking network has, thereby helping those in Canada experiencing food insecurity in the most efficient manner,” Food Banks Canada CEO Chris Hatch said in the government’s release Thursday.

“We are thankful for the opportunity to build deeper partnerships within the agri-food system as well as helping ensure that highly nutritious, available food feeds people in need and that these resources are stewarded responsibly.”

For its project, Food Banks Canada plans to rescue “multiple” surplus commodities and flow those foods in both “current and processed formats” to its network of over 3,000 local-level food banks and community agencies.

The CPMA’s project will work similarly, moving produce to participating charitable agencies through participating distribution and transport companies.

Second Harvest’s project will work in much the same way, but will use its FoodRescue.ca online platform and mobile app to determine “when and from where” specific surplus foods are acquired, and to make sure the rate of distribution “does not exceed the handling and storage capacity of individual food charities.”

Quebec-based La Tablee des Chefs plans to recover over 350,000 kg of surplus foods, to be turned into meals by its network of chefs in Les Cuisines Solidaires in Quebec and in five Canadian cities: Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg. Meals are then to be redistributed through Banques Alimentaires du Quebec, Second Harvest and other organizations.

Fisher River Cree Nation, in Manitoba’s Interlake region, expects to secure up to 2.9 million pounds of walleye caught in Canada’s inland lakes, for distribution to over 75 Indigenous communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Canada’s North.

For that project, distribution will be handled by way of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp., the Winnipeg-based marketing agency for commercial fishers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories.

The Clearwater project will see 150,000 pounds of surplus seafood distributed to Indigenous communities in Nova Scotia and nationally, while the Green Seafoods project will see 24,000 pounds of frozen blue mussels bought and distributed through Feed Nova Scotia. Les Fermes Dani will distribute surplus potatoes to Indigenous communities in New Brunswick and nationally.

“Not only are we helping producers who cannot sell their goods to restaurants, but we are also aiding Canadians that have had to seek help from food banks,” Bibeau said during Thursday’s announcement.

“These eight impressive partnerships between food businesses and not-for-profit organizations target those food commodities that had significant and urgent surpluses, making a difference both at the level of the producer and the food bank, from coast to coast to coast.”

“By working across sectors to build partnerships, we’re creating a mutually beneficial system that meets two urgent needs at once,” federal Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan said in the same release.

Bibeau’s event Thursday was held at the St-Hyacinthe head office of Nutri Group, an egg marketing agency which with partners across Canada pledged over one million dozen fresh shell eggs to the Food Banks Canada and Second Harvest projects. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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South Mill Champs, formed in 2018 from the merger of Philadelphia-area producer South Mill and Aldergrove, B.C.-based Champs Mushrooms, announced Tuesday it has expanded to include Loveday Mushroom Farms.

The merger is expected to allow the combined company to “expand its ability to supply fresh, high quality mushrooms to all major population areas in North America within 48 hours… improve production efficiencies across both companies and broaden its future planned compost and mushroom expansion plans.”

Also, “the geographic location of Loveday is complementary to our bi-coastal operations and will further enhance our fresh supply chain in the Midwest region of Canada and the United States,” South Mill Champs CEO Lewis Macleod said in the same release.

“The combining of efforts will allow us to expand our capabilities and leverage South Mill Champs’ infrastructure to further support our customers’ growth and ever-increasing demands,” Loveday president Burton Loveday said.

Financial terms of the combination weren’t disclosed in South Mill Champs’ release.

Launched in 1932 as Manitoba Mushroom Growers by then-building contractor Fred Loveday, the Winnipeg company rebranded with the Loveday banner in 1961 and today produces over six million pounds of mushrooms per year.

The company’s output includes white, crimini, oyster, portabella, shiitaki and enoki mushrooms for retail and foodservice customers from Alberta through to northwestern Ontario.

South Mill, which also formed in 1932, said the latest business combination comes “in response to increasing market demand as the health benefits of mushrooms become mainstream.”

The South Mill Champs business yields over 110 million pounds of mushrooms per year and “has experienced significant growth year over year, and distribution continues to expand as retailers and other customers demand high-quality, longer-lasting produce.”

South Mill Champs also includes distribution centres “strategically located in major metropolitan areas across North America,” including Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and New Orleans — a model it says has “changed the way non-regionally produced mushrooms were sold.”

Being able to guarantee “consistent and frequent delivery anywhere in our network within two days of harvest” means “longer shelf life and less ‘shrink’ for our customers,” the company said on its website. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The $50 million Surplus Food Rescue Program — which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau telegraphed in a funding announcement May 5 — will take applications from “organizations addressing food insecurity” from now until July 15, Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced Monday.

The program — to be administered by the federal agriculture department — is meant to move surplus food through the system “as efficiently as possible to help vulnerable Canadians.”

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the “near closure” of the restaurant and foodservice sectors in both Canada and the U.S., which in turn left producers with surpluses of food and “increased demand from grocery stores alone is not expected to clear the inventory before it spoils,” the government said in a release.

“At the same time, the pandemic has increased the demand for food from food banks and other food security organizations in communities across Canada.”

Bibeau said last week the government had already started to work on the program with businesses that have surpluses they can offer to food bank networks.

The program is to back the “purchase, processing, transportation and redistribution of surplus food… that may be fresh, frozen inventory or in need of further processing due to its highly perishable nature.”

Surplus commodities eligible for the program can include foods in fresh form as well as those that need to be processed and packaged into “shelf-stable” products for storage or distribution.

Surplus foods, once processed, must be donated and are not to be resold, AAFC added.

Applicants can include not-for-profit and for-profit organizations, such as industry groups, processors, distributors, food serving agencies, regional and municipal governments, schools, school boards and other agencies.

But applicants must also “demonstrate an ability to handle the full logistical requirements for acquiring, processing, transporting and ensuring shelf-life stability of surplus commodities and delivery to organizations serving vulnerable populations.”

The program is meant to address “urgent, high-volume, highly perishable surplus products falling under horticulture, meat and fish and seafood,” the government said.

“Priority consideration for surplus commodities that have immediate risk of loss will be determined first,” the government said. It gave potatoes and “some aquaculture products” as examples of goods that “need immediate processing or will be lost or destroyed.”

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada said it will take an “inclusive and challenge-based approach” with applicants.

Contributions from the program will be paid out to organizations which, among other criteria, can “acquire and move the most surplus product.” Applicants will need to identify the amount to be moved.

Applicants must also show they have the “most cost-effective approach” in acquiring food — for example, at or below the cost of production, or through donations where possible. They’ll also have to show they can provide the most cost-effective approach — at “minimal cost” — for processing if goods can’t be distributed otherwise.

They’ll also have to show they can be the most efficient at drawing down surplus stocks quickly, from wholesale purchases through to food-serving agencies, and that they have partnerships “already established along the supply chain” — including connections to food-serving agencies.

AAFC, which is targeting up to 10 per cent of all food specifically for northern communities, also said applicants will need to be able to make sure food reaches “the most vulnerable and remote communities” in Canada.

“Nobody wants to see food go to waste, and thanks to this new program, we’re helping the industry redistribute surplus products to vulnerable, local communities where it can make a real difference in someone’s life,” Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan said in Monday’s release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Ottawa tabbed $50 million of its COVID-19 response funds for agriculture to buy surplus food from farmers and redistribute it to communities in need.

The challenge Bibeau and her federal colleagues are faced with is how to match excess food supplies with pre-existing food security distribution networks.

“It’s a matter of days before we inform everyone of the criteria of the programs, but we have already started to work with the different industries who have surpluses that they can offer to the food-bank networks,” Bibeau said during a media availability Tuesday.

Initial indications from the federal government were that the money would start rolling out by the end of May, when the fund was first announced.

But Canada’s food supply chains are not straightforward enough to simply take excess products, such as potatoes and poultry, and distribute them to food banks.

In an online meeting of the Commons standing agriculture committee on Wednesday, Bibeau said some concerned sectors, including meat, horticulture and fish producers, have been contacted already.

According to a statement from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), commodities that would be eligible for the program are still being identified, and the program parameters are being developed to be made public “in the near future.”

“This will be done in a manner that respects the needs and health of vulnerable populations in Canada, fairly compensates agricultural producers and agri-food processors, maintains positive relationships with community food providers, and supports efforts to reduce food waste,” the statement said.

Bibeau also hinted the federal government’s “Buy Canadian” promotional campaign will “have to wait a bit longer” before being launched.

Concerns have been raised within her department over the timing of that program, and what commodities it will focus on, but its goal remains to spend $25 million to “build consumer confidence and pride in Canada’s agriculture, food and seafood producers and highlight the advantages of their products.”

Bibeau’s comments came during a press conference to announce previously announced money was available to help address food security issues. To support local food infrastructures, roughly $43.4 million can now be accessed by eligible organizations.

— D.C. Fraser reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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Longueuil, Que.-based Agropur announced Thursday it will eliminate 60 positions and temporarily lay off another 200 employees, all from its Canadian operations.

In the “unprecedented context” of COVID-19, Agropur said in a release, its “priority is to maintain its dairy manufacturing and distribution operations, which constitute an essential public service.”

The layoffs affect employees “not assigned to essential operational duties,” the company said.

“These are difficult decisions to make but they are necessary in order to maintain the sustainability of our business,” Agropur CEO Emile Cordeau said in Thursday’s release. “Our goal is to bring the temporarily laid-off employees back to work as soon as we can resume the normal course of business.”

The staff cuts and layoffs announced Thursday follow a round of cuts in November that affected 125 Agropur employees, in what it described at the time as an “organizational review to increase the profitability of its Canadian operations.”

The co-operative — which has over 3,000 farmer members, and whose dairy brands include Lucerne, Natrel, Iogo, Olympic and Quebon — booked net earnings of $40.18 million on record sales of $7.255 billion in 2019, down from $67.69 million on $6.714 billion in sales the previous year.

While Agropur’s U.S. operations were supportive to net earnings as “the relationship between the cheese price and the cost of milk improved” in 2019, its Canadian operations showed decreased earnings due to “the competitive environment and operational issues.”

Agropur said Thursday it “moved quickly in the early days” of the pandemic to set up employee health and safety measures and “a business continuity plan to ensure it can continue delivering high-quality dairy products to its customers and consumers.”

Instructions are in place and have been “toughened” for staff regarding travel restrictions and telework as well as hygiene, disinfection, mandatory reporting of illness and access control at all sites for all employees, suppliers and visitors, the company said. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“Not if we can help it,” Fertilizer Canada CEO Garth Whyte said Thursday.”We’ve weathered all the rail system disruptions that we had over the last six months, and now, with COVID-19, we’re doing OK.

“We’ve put contingency plans in at our manufacturing plants, at our storage terminals, and our retail outlets across the country to make sure that employees are protected and that farmers get the fertilizer they need.

“Stocks are pretty well in position, and once farmers start up in a couple weeks, we should be OK.”

Fertilizer Canada is working closely with provincial and federal governments, as well as national ag organizations, to ensure COVID-19 safety measures don’t have “unintended consequences” on fertilizer distribution.

“We’ve implored government to not forget about us,” Whyte said. “We’ve really been pushing that fertilizer is an essential commodity that’s got to get to our farmers.”

“A lot of the directions around COVID-19 have been from an urban point of view, but we’re there to remind them that we need to make sure that we don’t blindside the agriculture industry with any changes.”

The federal government announced Wednesday that trade between Canada and the U.S. would remain mostly uninterrupted despite closing the border to non-essential traffic.

But the real concern right now is potential trucker shortages across North America, Whyte said, adding that trucking regulations may need to change to reflect the current emergency situation.

“They may have to work longer hours, so they shouldn’t be impeded by hours-of-work legislation,” he said. “It’s got to be safe and secure, of course, but if it is, then let’s make sure we’re doing everything possible to get fertilizer to the growers when they need it.”

While the Canadian Trucking Alliance isn’t yet experiencing problems, Fertilizer Canada will be monitoring the situation.

“We’re ramped up, but (seeding) is not going to happen for a couple more weeks, so we’re monitoring and preparing now.”

So far, the response from governments has been “overwhelmingly supportive,” he added.

“They basically understand the importance of agriculture and agribusiness and their inputs as a major part of their COVID-19 contingency planning,” said Whyte.

“It’s critical that we have a successful planting season this spring that hopefully leads to good yields at harvest this fall. If we have a strong agriculture sector, it can play a major role in Canada’s economy, especially with everything going on.

“As we try to get out of this pandemic and potential recession, one of the shining lights will hopefully be agriculture.”

— Jennifer Blair reports for Alberta Farmer from Red Deer.

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Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL) announced Thursday it will close its Calgary food distribution centre in April, a decision it said will eliminate just over 200 jobs in the city.

The wind-down of the Calgary warehouse will begin “soon,” FCL said, and products for other co-ops in Alberta and B.C. will “gradually” be shipped by way of FCL warehouses in Edmonton and Saskatoon.

The closure follows Calgary Co-op’s announcement in August that it would halt its grocery procurement from FCL as of April 20 and will instead source groceries for its network of food stores from the Alberta distribution arm of Vancouver-based Save-on-Foods.

In a memo to member customers in August, Calgary Co-op said it’s “positioning our food business to further enhance our focus on Calgary with more local products and communications tailored specifically to you.”

Calgary Co-op, which by itself is one of the largest retail co-operatives in North America, includes food stores, fuel stations and convenience stores in Calgary, Airdrie, Cochrane, High River, Okotoks and Strathmore.

The co-operative said in August it plans to continue to source its fuel and convenience store products from FCL. Also, Calgary Co-op noted, its High River food store “will continue to be supplied by (FCL).”

“Our food stores operate in a very competitive environment under continuing challenging economic conditions in Calgary,” Calgary Co-op said in August, adding that the move “provides us with the flexibility to focus our merchandising, marketing and IT programs.”

Calgary Co-op grossed $1.3 billion in sales across its various business lines in 2018, including food, fuel, liquor, home centres, health care and cannabis products. Of that, $671.55 million was in food alone.

Calgary Co-op, in its 2018 annual report, said it holds about 10 per cent of the shares in FCL. Calgary Co-op’s total purchases from FCL in 2018, across all business lines, were valued at $720.5 million, representing about 70 per cent of the Calgary association’s total purchases that year.

“In a city that’s already experiencing significant economic challenges, Calgary Co-op’s decision has led to more jobs being lost, and more families facing challenges,” FCL executive vice-president Vic Huard said Thursday in a release.

“By aligning itself with a competitor, Calgary Co-op has directly and negatively impacted our employees, their families, and Calgary’s economy.”

Also, FCL said, Calgary Co-op’s move is expected to reduce FCL revenue by $400 million, which in turn is expected to have a “negative effect” on profit-sharing returns from FCL to the 170 Western Canada co-ops involved in the Co-operative Retailing System.

That includes Calgary Co-op, which FCL said has received $186.4 million in such profit-sharing over the five-year period ending in 2018.

Saskatoon-based FCL “will also continue to evaluate all aspects of our operations to determine if further steps need to be taken,” Huard said.

Some Calgary Co-op members, he said, “have contacted us asking how this decision to move to a competitor happened without Calgary Co-op’s members being consulted. That’s not something we can answer — it’s really a question they need to ask the CEO and board of the co-op that they, as members, own.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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