Three cases of COVID-19 were confirmed Wednesday at the JBS beef packing plant in Brooks, said Tom Hesse, Local 401 president with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada.

JBS Canada spokesman Cameron Bruett confirmed some employees have tested positive for the virus, but said the Brooks plant is staying open.

“We are providing support to those team members and their families, and we hope they all make a full and speedy recovery. Out of respect for the families, we are not releasing further information,” he wrote in an emailed statement.

“The food supply is a critical infrastructure industry and we have a special responsibility to maintain operations on behalf of the country. We take this responsibility seriously.”

On Easter weekend, it was reported that 38 cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed at the Cargill plant in High River, and one case was detected at Harmony Beef back in March.

The number of cases at Cargill prompted Alberta Health Services to open a dedicated testing centre at that plant this week, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health said Wednesday.

“Local public health has worked with these locations to ensure close contacts are isolated and prevent transmission,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw said. “There is no risk to the public from food produced in these plants.”

Hesse said he has written a letter to Cargill urging the company to shut down its High River plant.

“When you have that measure of diagnoses, you shut the plant down, just for two weeks,” Hesse said Tuesday. “It’s a necessary act to save lives and keep the plant functioning. If food inspectors think it’s unsafe, they won’t come to work, and they (Cargill) will have to shut the plant down. If COVID gets worse they will have to shut the plant down.”

‘Business resumption protocol’

Jon Nash, the North America lead for Cargill’s protein division, told Glacier FarmMedia on Monday in an emailed statement that the second shift at the High River plant would be temporarily idled starting that day.

The facility has also put additional safety measures such as temperature testing and distancing practices “where possible,” he said.

The plant is working with Alberta Health Services, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and safety officials, and will consider a shutdown if necessary, Nash told other media this week.

The Alberta and federal governments said Thursday they’ve now agreed on an “intergovernmental business resumption protocol” when responding to confirmed COVID-19 cases in provincially and federally licensed food processing facilities, which would allow plants to continue operating.

Whereas the COVID-19 case last month at Harmony Beef had led to a shutdown at that plant, the principles of the new protocol were applied when the Cargill plant booked its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on April 6, the province said Thursday in a release.

“We are proud of the fact that this protocol has already proven effective in advance of it being formally signed by all parties,” the province said.

The new protocol “complements the guidance that the CFIA has provided to federally registered meat establishments to implement measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure for inspectors and workers,” federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in the same release.

Cargill did not respond to interview requests from Alberta Farmer.

— Alexis Kienlen reports for Alberta Farmer from Edmonton. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

Update, April 17: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated CCA executive vice-president Dennis Laycraft had toured the Cargill plant since the outbreak occurred.

The post Third major Alberta beef plant confirms COVID-19 cases appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Alberta Health Services informed us Thursday that an employee who had not been at work for days had a positive test for COVID-19,” company spokesperson Crosbie Cotton said March 27.

The individual had been off sick for several days, and as per Harmony Beef’s policy, all eleven workers in his department were sent home to quarantine themselves for 14 days, although none had symptoms.

“We are not harvesting new cattle today,” said Cotton. “We hope to be up and running by Monday, or as quickly as possible. Until then, we will continue to process the cattle we have chilling.”

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency was informed about the positive test by health officials, and is working with provincial health authorities and the company to restore the plant to normal working capacity. CFIA employees have been asked to conduct a self-assessment daily for potential symptoms of the virus.

The CFIA did not provide slaughter inspection services on March 27 while health risk assessments were conducted and the plant initiated follow-up activities. Cotton said other areas of the plant were operational and processing was still occurring.

“We’re hoping it’s a very short rest on the harvest side,” he said. “On the fabrication side, it’s full steam ahead.”

Harmony Beef has about 500 staff and slaughters about 750 cattle every day.

“Alberta Health Services told us that the protocols we have been using to sanitize the plant constantly are exceptional,” said Cotton. “Every employee is tested on their way into work at the entrance every day for any symptoms. If they had symptoms, they would be sent home.”

The post Sick employee disrupts slaughter at Harmony Beef appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange June lean hog futures settled down 4.5 cents at 64.25 cents/lb., a life-of-contract low (all figures US$).

Live cattle and feeder cattle futures also fell sharply. CME June live cattle finished down 4.125 cents at 89.425 cents/lb. while the nearby April contract fell the 4.5-cent limit to 100.95 cents.

CME May feeder cattle futures settled down 4.5 cents at 120.925 cents/lb.

Limits for hogs and live cattle will remain at 4.5 cents for Monday’s trade and feeder cattle limits will widen to 6.75 cents, the exchange said.

A worker at a Smithfield Foods plant at Sioux Falls, S.D. tested positive for the coronavirus, the Argus Leader newspaper reported on Thursday, raising fears among traders of possible shutdowns. Smithfield officials could not be reached for comment.

“That news that a Smithfield plant employee tested positive for the virus has people scared that we are going to have to shut a plant down and lose capacity,” said Brian Hoops, president of Midwest Market Solutions.

Separately, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency did shut production at Harmony Beef, a southern Alberta packing plant, due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19, an industry group said Friday.

Still, some traders said concerns about bottlenecks of hogs and cattle were overblown.

“That was a great fear in the market a couple of weeks ago, but now we are dealing with it and it is really not causing the backup in hog numbers or cattle numbers,” said Dennis Smith, commodity broker for Archer Financial Services in Chicago.

“The profit margins are so fantastic (that) these packers have every incentive in the world to figure this out,” he said.

Hog futures faced additional pressure after the U.S. Department of Agriculture late Thursday reported the U.S. hog herd as of March 1 at 77.6 million head, up four per cent from a year ago but roughly in line with trade expectations.

Also bearish were softening wholesale meat prices, a possible sign that consumers are scaling back panic-buying at the supermarket after stocking their freezers with meat.

The U.S. pork cutout fell by $3.82 on Friday afternoon, its fourth straight daily decline, according to USDA data.

— Julie Ingwersen is a Reuters commodities correspondent in Chicago.

The post U.S. livestock: Hog, cattle futures dive as volatile trade continues appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The partial closure follows a positive COVID-19 test by a worker at U.S. chicken company Sanderson Farms announced this week.

The spread of COVID-19 has led to consumer hoarding of staple groceries, making meat processing more lucrative.

Alberta’s health department notified Harmony on Thursday that a worker who had not been on the job for days had tested positive, Harmony spokesman Crosbie Cotton said. The company then sent the other workers in his part of the slaughter area home for 14 days, even though they did not display symptoms.

In a statement, CFIA confirmed it did not provide inspection services on Friday after it learned that a Harmony employee had tested positive for COVID-19.

Federally regulated slaughter plants are not allowed to operate without inspectors present.

The plant at Balzac, just north of Calgary, can process 750 head of cattle per day, much less than bigger Alberta plants owned by Cargill and JBS. While slaughter has halted at Harmony, it is still carrying out other types of processing, Cotton said.

Harmony, owned by the Vesta family, hopes to fully reopen on Monday pending talks with CFIA, he said.

Alberta produces more beef than any other Canadian province.

Meat production is so profitable currently that Cargill and JBS have added Saturday shifts, said Kevin Grier, a meat and livestock analyst.

Meat plants have gone to great lengths to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including assembly of tents and trailers to create greater distance among workers, Grier said.

Harmony screens every worker daily for symptoms and increased cleaning in the plant weeks ago, Cotton said.

CFIA told meat processing plants last week it would reduce the agency’s staffed hours at domestic plants because of capacity constraints.

— Reporting for Reuters by Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg.

The post Alberta’s Harmony Beef halts slaughter on positive COVID-19 test appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

It has also started selling to the U.S., made its first shipment to Hong Kong this month, and is in the process of obtaining certification required to sell to the European Union, he said. The company is also looking at selling to Japan, Korea, China, and Mexico.

The plant is owned by Rich Vesta, a former top executive in the U.S. meat-packing industry. Vesta is happy with how the plant is performing and customers have praised the quality of its products, said Daniels.

The post New Harmony Beef plant ramping up appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“When we start out, we’ll start very slowly,” said owner Rich Vesta.

The American meat-packing industry veteran bought the shuttered Rancher’s Beef plant just north of Calgary in 2013 and is running it with his two sons, Jeremy and Christopher. Since then, the family has invested heavily — Vesta will only say “millions” — in upgrades and overcome numerous regulatory and political hurdles.

The plant will start slowly, he said.

“In our first week, I doubt we’ll get over 50 head a day,” said Vesta, who ran JBS North America, and is known for improving efficiency and profitability at underperforming beef plants. “The first day, we’ll be lucky to get 20 (head).”

The plan is to move up to 120 head a day during the first month, with production to ramp up to full capacity of 750 to 800 head a day in eight to nine months.

The plant, located on 140 acres near Balzac, was opened by a group of cattle producers in 2006. But it struggled in the aftermath of BSE and closed after only 14 months.

The first six months of Harmony Beef’s production will be focused on commodity beef, similar to the rest of the Canadian beef industry. The plant will not sell carcasses, and will specialize in boxed beef. From there, Harmony Beef will be moving into specialty production, the details of which Vesta will not disclose until closer to the launch date.

But a couple of things are certain. Vesta plans to market to the European Union, and after six months of production, he will offer a premium for producers following programs like Verified Beef Production Plus.

“We’re not doing all this to be a commodity beef producer — that’s not our goal,” said Vesta. “While we will certainly have commodity beef, there will be emphasis on other things. The nice thing about this plant is it’s small enough to be flexible, but it’s large enough to be meaningful to some customers who appreciate these things.

“It will probably take us a year to get into the European Union because of the intricacies of that market and the supply chain that needs to be set up,” he said. “We are getting EU certification for this plant. This is definitely on the table.”

Harmony Beef already meets or exceeds most EU standards.

“The harvest side of this business was really built by Europeans,” he said. “I’m not sure of any North American plants that have technology like this.”

‘All about incentives’

Vesta is sure he will be able to get enough Canadian cattle to meet European specifications.

“It’s all about incentives,” he said, although he added that he hasn’t been as focused on that side of the equation because he has been working on opening the plant.

He’s had clear interest from all sectors of the industry and knows the market is already there in Europe.

“It works down to economics. You can get all the cattle you need if you offer the right economics,” he said.

It’s taken more than three years of effort to get to this point. A major hurdle was getting a permit for a new waste water treatment plant from Rocky View County in the face of opposition from Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, local developers, and residents of northeast Calgary. But the newly constructed water recycling system is state of the art, and Vesta said he isn’t aware of any other plant in the world with the same technology.

“The technology itself was relatively simple and straightforward. It was just getting the understanding of everybody concerned,” he said.

The whole process ended up being more complicated than Vesta expected.

“They kept confusing our process water treatment plant with a sewage treatment plant,” he said. “It’s totally different. It took a lot of patience and perseverance and some capital to see this through.”

The water used in the water recycling system will be the same quality level used in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

But the time, effort, and money has been worth it, said Vesta.

“It will be the finest beef plant in North America. Nothing will compare to it from the harvest side through the refrigeration we’ve renovated, through the fabrication, which is all brand new, to the water treatment plant. There’s no other plant like it in North America, for sure.”

The plant is now staffed by about 70 people, and will open with around 125 to 150 employees.

The post Harmony Beef announces opening date appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The oil price crash went from bad to awful, tighter margins were made worse by summer drought, and ‘disaster’ seems a charitable description for Bill 6.

But there were lots of positive developments in the past year and now’s not a bad time to recall them as we head into 2016.

Things have changed

In 2011, the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute think-tank conducted an in-depth review of the Canadian beef sector by talking to more than 80 “stakeholders” — beef producers, feedlot operators, processors, retailers, and others.

Its report was not a fun read, describing a fractured sector where there was lots of distrust and “no long-term and shared strategic plan.”

A lot has changed since then, and this is illustrated by the front-page story from last January, describing the “Big Hairy Audacious” goals of the new national beef strategy for 2020 — namely to boost production efficiency by 15 per cent, increase carcass cut-out value by 15 per cent, and reduce cost disadvantage relative to global competitors by seven per cent.

“You can’t make every goal in life, but if you don’t set something that’s higher than what you have today, you can’t strive to get there,” said Trevor Atchison, the Manitoba rancher who was co-chair of the strategy initiative.

If you want to check out how much progress is being made, you might want to attend the Canadian Beef Industry Conference in Calgary in August. It’s the first time the major beef industry groups have held a joint national event.

That’s a hugely positive sign for an industry that the think-tank described as being unable to collaborate because of its “cowboy mentality.”

More than dirt

The last paper of 2015 had a front-page story on the first-ever western Canadian conference on soil health, and co-chair Tom Fromme could barely contain his enthusiasm.

“I am more excited about agriculture right now than I have ever been in my whole life,” said Fromme, research co-ordinator with the North Peace Applied Research Association.

“I’ve been a researcher for longer than I can remember, and I just feel like this is the right direction.”

The fact the sold-out conference was packed with producers (and had to turn many more away) is one sign that something significant is happening in this whole ‘don’t treat soil like dirt’ movement.

And a lot of it is happening in Alberta.

A front-page story in April featured the work on cover crops done by Fromme’s association and the paper had many, many other stories on building soil health during the year. But what’s particularly significant is that this is a farmer-driven movement.

The North Peace group is one of many small Alberta organizations governed by producers and focused on research that matters to their members. Increasingly, things like cover crops, tillage radish, microbes, and soil biology are topping their list of applied research that boosts the bottom line.

We haven’t — so far — written a headline that says ‘Alberta producers go wild for mycorrhizal fungi.’

But the year is still young.

Opportunities await

Yes, a lot of farmers are sick of hearing about consumers demanding this, that, and the other thing when it comes to how their food is produced.

But the May 11 livestock front on a new animal welfare assessment tool for feedlots is just one example of how well the farm community is responding to increased consumer scrutiny.

It’s worth noting that in this story — and this is true of similar assessment tools for both crops and livestock — that the focus is on finding simple, easy-to-use methods to show that producers are, by and large, already doing the right things.

“I don’t see that there would be any concerns at all, because producers are already doing these things,” feedlot veterinarian Dr. Joyce Van Donkersgoed said in this story.

This ‘document it’ business is also producing an important side benefit. For example, in the livestock sector, things such as low-stress weaning and preconditioning to reduce antimicrobial use are also good for the pocketbook.

There are many sayings about how problems come with hidden opportunities. Agriculture is full of people who embrace that wisdom.

Inspiring producers

This summer, we invited our colleagues from the Manitoba Co-operator to come visit us, and we put together a little tour that included some farm visits (as well as stops at Harmony Beef and the Canadian Beef Centre of Excellence). Of course, we also wrote about everyone we visited and the results can be seen in the July 6 paper and subsequent editions.

It is joyful work.

There is nothing like going to someone’s farm and seeing what passion and hard work can accomplish. It would be great if all Albertans could do the same.

Actually, they can. That’s what Open Farm Day is all about and more than 70 farm families welcomed the public to their operations on Aug. 23. And visitors were wowed.

“I thought, ‘Why would anyone want to come to a boring old conventional grain farm?’” remarked Irma producer Kent Erickson. “But really, why not? We take things for granted.”

Not every farm can participate in the event, but hopefully more will in 2016 and more non-farm folks will take advantage. There’s no better showcase for Alberta agriculture.

A good-news story continues

In the early 1970s, a pair of Manitoba researchers bred rapeseed with far less erucic acid and combined the words ‘CANada, Oil, Low and Acid’ to give it a new name.

Just five years after the first variety was released, Western Canada turned bright yellow as more than 8.4 million acres were planted and the term ‘Cinderella crop’ was coined.

Producers may be taking a wait-and-see approach to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which still faces a bumpy road to ratification — and even then, it may take years before the agreement leads to more sales.

But the truth is that canola has been a windfall for Prairie agriculture. Canola oil remains a premium product that fetches premium prices and has stimulated that rarest of things — a value-added processing industry. Indeed, Cargill opened its new one-million-tonne crush plant in Camrose last year.

Whether the TPP trade deal unfolds as expected or not, the fact remains that the canola industry remains forward thinking. The ball isn’t over for Cinderella yet.

The post Five reasons to celebrate 2015 appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Quite honestly, when we started, we were overaggressive in our time frame,” said Rich Vesta, an American businessman and former top executive in the U.S. meat-packing industry.

Vesta completed the purchase of the former Rancher’s Beef Plant in Balzac in late 2013, calling the facility world class, but also in need of upgrades to put it on the leading edge of slaughter plants. The new startup date is Sept. 14, he said.

“We want to operate as soon as we can, but we want to make sure everything is correct before we operate the plant,” said Vesta. “Our original goal that we set when we bought the plant was totally unrealistic. We could not have complied with our own time frame, regardless of the city or county.”

A development permit for the plant’s planned waste water treatment facility has been an issue, even though the proposed system will reduce water consumption by 90 per cent and will recycle and purify water used at the site.

“We’re just waiting to get all our ducks in a row so we can apply for a development permit to put the equipment in a building that is about 64,000 square feet,” he said.

In November, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, wrote to the Rocky View County’s reeve, expressing concern over the waste water treatment plant and the slaughterhouse. Nenshi wrote that Northeast Calgary and east Balzac have radically changed since the slaughterhouse was approved and built in 2004 (it closed in 2007 after just 14 months in operation). In his letter, Nenshi said there has been no independent analysis on how the operations of the slaughterhouse and the treatment plant will impact air quality and the environment.

“We certainly are sensitive to their questions and we think we’ve tried to answer most of those,” said Vesta. “We’ve invited the mayor to come and visit us. We’ve had some of the other people from Calgary, but not him. I think it really stems from a lack of understanding about our project and how we conduct our business. Whenever we’ve had a chance to explain things to people and walk them through our plant and our technology, we are usually met with agreement.”

Neither Nenshi or Rocky View Reeve Margaret Bahcheli responded to repeated interview requests from Alberta Farmer.

Vesta said he expects to get a permit for the waste water treatment plant soon and begin construction of the building that will house it. The slaughter plant itself already has the permits it needs, he said.

He also said residents of nearby communities shouldn’t be concerned.

“We’re always anxious to tell our story and to show people what our project is about,” said Vesta. “We take our involvement in any community seriously. We never want to have a degrading effect on any community that we operate in. We never have and we never will.”

The post Harmony Beef slaughter plant opening pushed back appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.