It’s going to be a chance for four informed people to give their best guess as to how the whole realignment of the prairie grain industry is going to end up. I’ve spoken to all four about what we’re going to be discussing, and it’s struck me just how much everything relies on everything else. What I mean is that the actual shape of the prairie industry is not going to be shaped by any one company, agency, law or regulation. It’s going to come down to how all the many disparate players in the industry choose to go forward, one piece at a time, all following their own unique interests. And as any one acts, the others will react and go from there. So it’s unpredictable.

I’m going to be asking them about what opportunities exist to be filled in the new environment, and what gaps might appear. Who’s going to be able to take advantage of the opportunities? Some folks are already trying to fit themselves into roles they didn’t play under the monopoly environment. Others are waiting to see who’s doing what before they decide to go forwards.

I wonder if that’s where some of the gaps will appear, because even if some crucial roles and functions are spotted, will people move quickly to fill them – leaping on the opportunity – or will be they be conservative and not rashly move into areas they don’t know much about? From what I’ve heard around the industry, everyone’s interested in being able to offer new services and develop their businesses, but most want to be cautious before they take on too much risk.

So after August 1, some things might not be there that farmers and the industry need. That will be interesting to watch – if you’re a reporter like me. If you’re a farmer or grain industry person, it will be less interesting and more anxiety-inducing. I had a laugh with one of the panelists about the situation, using former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s line about “Known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.” The industry’s probably being pretty good at filling in the known knowns, is likely mostly aware of the known unknowns, but by their very definition, they can’t know anything about the unknown unknowns, and can merely prepare themselves to face them when they leap up.

With any luck, the gaps won’t be too wide for too long.

Grant Lastiwka, a forage specialist with Alberta Agriculture, said the Canadian Forage and Grasslands Association report assesses the potential impact of Roundup Ready alfalfa on Canada’s forage industry.


“They are not taking a stand, but trying to bring forth potential issues or benefits. We wanted to create a dialog,” he said.


“We are absolutely not meant to come up with a position paper.”


Roundup Ready alfalfa has been approved for growth and sale in Canada since 2005, about the same time as it was approved in the United States. A judge’s ruling said the U.S. Department of Agriculture did not properly look at market impacts and stalled Roundup Ready alfalfa production in the United States until recently. 


Forage Genetics International sells the seed in the United States and has the right to sell it on behalf of Monsanto in Canada.


Janice Bruynooghe, executive director of the Saskatchewan Forage Council, said her group has no indication that Roundup Ready alfalfa will be sold in Canada soon but it wants to make sure it has the information needed for an informed discussion.


“We want to bring the industry together to talk about it and gather information that we do have and compile it,” she said.


“We will present what we know, make an assessment and it is what it is.”


After the study is released in April, the council may form a policy statement, based on the information, she said.


Doug Yungblut, who was hired to produce the report, wants to interview as many people as possible from across Canada about genetically modified alfalfa’s potential benefits and impacts.


During a daylong session in Saskatoon in December, the seed industry raised concerns about the possibility of Roundup Ready alfalfa affecting seed sales in Europe. The organic industry also brought up concerns about contaminated alfalfa seed and the sprouts business. Others believed it would be a useful tool for the farm.


Yungblut said his report would focus on the size of the forage industry and its potential growth and discuss how Roundup Ready alfalfa could affect existing markets or benefit farmers. 


“It’s hard to know how big the market will be,” said Yungblut.


Bruynooghe said there is no easy answer to adopting Roundup Ready alfalfa for use in Canada.

He told the Saskatchewan Beef Industry Symposium that 99 percent of consumers want healthy, nutritious food at a reasonable price.


He cited studies showing 95 percent choose traditionally grown food based on taste, cost and nutrition.


Another four percent are lifestyle buyers. They choose luxury, gourmet, organic or local, he said.


But then there is the one percent of so-called fringe buyers. 


“They work with food bans, restrictions, propositions in the U.S. and Canada,” Toews said. 


“They work through lobbying our ministers to change our production practices, to limit the products we can use, to suit their food tastes. This is a risk for us as we look down the road in our whole regulatory framework.”


Toews said agriculture has a global responsibility over the next several decades to grow 70 percent more food than it now does. Restrictions placed on production by a small number of people could put that in jeopardy.


He said the beef industry has made significant gains in sustainability.


According to U.S. data from 1977 to 2007, land use per pound of beef produced dropped 33 percent, water use declined 11 percent, feed consumption decreased 19 percent and fossil fuel use declined 10 percent.


“We have made real strides on the sustainability front and we need to tell the story,” he said. 


“But we could never have done it without access to cutting edge animal health and animal production products. We could not have done it without a regulatory framework that encourages and allows the use of those products and technologies.”


Steve Kay, editor and publisher of Cattle Buyers Weekly, said antibiotic use is constantly under pressure from people outside the industry.


He also extended his warning to animal welfare practices and said the Humane Society of the United States is more dangerous than the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.


Kay said that group is seeking new targets, including branding, dehorning and castration.


“Be prepared that anything could happen,” he said.


The code of practice for beef cattle is being updated through the National Farm Animal Care Council, but the process is taking a while.

Steve Molitor, head of procurement for Cargill Meat Solutions, told cattle feeders at a Jan. 25 feedlot conference that aggressive use of hormone implants and beta-agonists will reduce the amount of top quality beef available to consumers.


“What double A and Select was 10 years ago is not what double A and Select is today,” said Molitor.


“We take the top tier of Select and we move it into a certain market, and so if you go into a regular retailer and it’s double A (beef), it’s probably the bottom double A and the eating experience is not near what it used to be.”


Growth promotants are used extensively in feedlots to increase the rate of gain so animals reach slaughter weight more quickly using less feed. Research has determined growth promotants can toughen beef, affecting the consumer’s eating experience.


Molitor said beef will fail to deliver on the promise of taste and tenderness and demand will erode if growth promotants are used too aggressively.


One feeder asked how feedlots could compete without using growth implants, given the narrow margins on which they operate.


“I don’t have an answer for that one, at the end of the day,” said Molitor. 


He said packers will eventually give feedlots a signal on when or if to use implants, but that might take awhile.


He encouraged wise use of implants, perhaps on higher quality animals so carcass grade loss won’t be as severe.


Molitor said tight beef supplies are causing prices to rise, and consumers will reach a point where they won’t pay more for beef without guaranteed taste and tenderness.


“We’re going to get prices very, very high and at some point (consumers are) going to make choices, if we’re going to be willing to pay that much for something that has a one out of two good eating experiences,” he said.


“People will change their habits. We won’t eat as much beef tomorrow.”


Meat scientist Sandra Gruber of Elanco told the conference that implants may be a necessity to economically produce enough beef to meet demand, but moderation will be key.


“There’s different combinations, different products that we can use to help moderate or balance the benefit that we get from production efficiency without long-term beef demand detriment,” she said.


Molitor also said maximum residue levels of growth hormones have been established by some countries, which limit export opportunities. However, production efficiency is a major driver in using growth promotants.

Researchers Lora Morandin and Mark Winston found that leaving up to 30 percent of land uncultivated in an agricultural landscape can bring greater profits from the cropland.


Farmers often consider the natural patches in their landscape, the sloughs and bush and woodlots, as waste areas. Conservationists tend to view those same areas as oases in a desert of mono-cropping. 


The Morandin and Winston study suggests that native bees and other pollinators are critically dependent on those natural patches.


The researchers compared canola plants in organic, conventional non-genetically modified and GM canola fields in the La Crete, Alta., region. 


They added supplemental pollen to some of the canola flowers in each field. The fate of these flowers was compared to flowers that were not hand pollinated. 


If the plants were already receiving all the pollen they needed, the additional hand pollination should have made no difference.


The researchers found different results in the different types of fields. 


Hand pollination made a big difference in the GM canola fields, reducing the number of siliques that had no seed and the number that had few seeds. 


It increased seed production by 33 percent over plants without the hand pollination. This indicated that canola in the GM fields was experiencing a “pollen deficit.” The native pollinators were not keeping up with demand.


The results were the same in non-GM conventional canola fields but not as severe. Supplemental hand pollination increased seed set by 21 percent. The conventional field, like the GM field, was experiencing a pollen deficit. Pollinators were not sufficient to meet the yield potential of the crop.


Results were different in the organic field. Hand pollinated and open pollinated flowers produced similar numbers of seeds. There were no differences between them in the number of siliques with no seeds or few seeds. 


In other words, the experimenters did not improve on the performance of the native pollinators.


Morandin and Winston then sampled the fields for insects, using sweep nets and pan traps. 


Using the same sampling protocol in each field, they found 342 bees in the organic fields, 230 bees in the conventional fields and 101 bees in the GM fields. 


Perhaps predictably, they found that where there were more bees, there was less pollen deficit. In science-speak, this was a highly significant relationship.


Why was pollination more effective in organic fields? Because they had more bees. Why were there more bees in organic fields? Organic fields differed in several ways from the other fields. 


The organic canola was Polish canola while conventional and GM fields were seeded to Argentine canola. 


Organic fields were smaller in size, 50 to 125 acres, rather than the 160 acres of the conventional and GM fields. And conventional and GM canola received an insecticide treatment during bloom, while organic fields did not. 


As it turns out, none of these factors fully explain the data. The Polish canola requires pollination to set seed. The Argentine canola can set seed without pollination, but pollination increases seed set. 


If anything, the organic canola was more dependent on pollination and would have been more vulnerable to pollen deficit. 


The researchers found no differences in pollen deficit between different locations in the fields. 


Pollen deficits in GM and conventional fields were as severe near the field edge as they were in the centres of the field, suggesting that at this scale, smaller fields were not at an advantage for pollination.


Although it seems logical to assume that insecticide treatments hurt bees, this could not account for the difference between GM fields and conventional fields because both received one treatment of the same insecticide. 


The researchers noted that bees are dependent on more than canola for nectar and pollen. 


Canola is in flower for only a portion of the life span of bees. They need alternate food sources before and after the canola flowers. 


The authors suggested that perhaps the difference among fields was in their weediness. Organic fields had a more abundant and diverse weed community. GM fields had better weed control than conventional fields. 


Weeds can provide crucial forage material for bees, and if the weed community is diverse, they can provide this forage over the life span of the bees. 


So what is the take home message for producers? Leave enough weeds to nourish your bees? Yes, perhaps, though many producers would probably feel more comfortable using honey bees for supplemental pollination. 


Perhaps the larger truth in this study is about the vulnerability of pollinators in our agro-ecosystems.


Honey bee populations are being devastated by colony collapse syndrome, and we really don’t understand why that is happening. It would be prudent, even from a strictly crop yield perspective, to protect native pollinators. Reducing weeds seems to reduce pollinators and pollination. 


Morandin and Winston conducted their study in an area that still had substantial amounts of natural habitat. They suggest that as more land is cleared, all bees will become scarcer. 


In a follow-up study, the researchers looked at the value of uncultivated land around fields and found that it was crucial in maintaining native pollinators. 


Native pollinators provide “free services,” which more than compensate for the loss of cropland. 


According to Morandin and Winston, profit in a landscape was maximized at slightly more than 30 percent uncultivated land. 


In other words, leave some room for the bees. They’ll pay you back handsomely.


The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation offers a number of suggestions on how to best maintain and enhance bee habitat. Morandin and Winston suggest that this might be a profitable idea.

• Feb 15-18: Biofach trade show, Nuremberg, Germany, Julia, jbustos@ota.com

• Feb 21-23: Canadian organic science conference, Winnipeg, Joanna MacKenzie, jmackenzie@nsac.ca, 902-896-2249

• Feb 24: Organic Federation of Canada annual general meeting, Winnipeg, info@organicfederation.ca 

• Feb. 23-25: Growing local conference, Winnipeg, growinglocal@foodmattersmanitoba.ca 

• Feb 24-26: COABC organic conference, Innovations, Chilliwack, B.C., conference@certifiedorganic.bc.ca 

• Feb 28: Webinar, Making the Transition to Small Scale Organic Produce Farming, COG, outreach@cogwaterloo.ca

• March 2-3: Organic Alberta Workshop, Lethbridge, vkhanel@gmail.com 

• March 5: Organic Alberta Workshop, Camrose, vkhanel@gmail.com 

• March 8: Organic Alberta Workshop, La Crete, Alta., vkhanel@gmail.com 

• March 9-10: Direct farm marketing conference, Gimli, Man., directfarmmarketing@gmail.com

• March 16: Opportunities in the Organic Marketplace and Manitoba Organic Alliance annual general meeting, Headingly, Man., info@manitobaorganicalliance.com 

• March 23: Saskatchewan Organic Directorate annual general meeting, Saskatoon, heather@saskorganic.com 

• April 24: Great Manitoba Food Fight, Brandon, jeff.fidyk@gov.mb.ca 

• April 30-May 12: Organic crop inspection training and organic livestock inspection training, Brandon, peterseM@Assiniboine.net
• Morandin and Winston, 2005. Wild Bee Abundance and Seed Production in Conventional, Organic and Genetically Modified Canola. Ecological Applications 15: 871-881.

• Morandin and Winston, 2006. Pollinators provide economic incentive to preserve natural land in agroecosystems. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 116: 289-292.

• The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, www.xerces.org.

No fewer than four groups are working on proposed strategies and the federal government has committed to adopting its own strategy in the future.


Meanwhile, Canadian agriculture ministers and their officials continue to negotiate the details of the next five-year national agricultural program to take effect April 1, 2013, effectively excluding any impact on the as-yet-unfinished strategies before 2018.


During a Feb. 8 speech to a Conference Board of Canada conference on its attempt at creating a national food strategy, Toronto-area farmer Peter Lambrick said that parallel strategies are being developed.


They will be useful only if there is co-ordination between the conclusions, he said.


“I hope the egos of the leaders don’t get in the way and we can see some co-operation and co-ordination,” he said to applause from the audience.


Collaboration is a key message from some of the competing strategy designers but it is far from clear that the end result of their efforts will mesh easily.


Among the contenders are:


• the Centre for Food in Canada, created by the Conference Board to develop a national strategy by October 2013. To date, regulatory reform has been a key emphasis

• the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, which has been working on a strategy for several years that aims to make sure producer interests are included. It has commissioned consumer consultations but with funding uncertainty, no end date for the strategy has been set

• the government and industry-funded Canadian AgriFood Policy Institute, which has been holding consultations and conferences aimed at developing a strategy with some of the emphasis on the connection between nutritious food and human health

• the Peoples’ Food Strategy initiative, which is intent on developing a vision centred on local food production and consumption, organic production and a strong role for small-scale farmers


There is collaboration now with CFA representatives working with both CAPI and the Conference Board on their work.


Last week at the Conference Board food conference, CAPI chair Gaetan Lussier was a speaker and a regular presence.


But he said it is important that the parallel food strategy efforts in the end collaborate to produce a cohesive plan. 


“Otherwise, government can pick and choose or do nothing,” he said.


Lambrick, who farms in Campbellville on the edge of Toronto, is a leader in producing a 10-year agricultural action plan for the Toronto and southwestern Ontario area that will be unveiled in early March.


He said work on that project involving municipalities, business and farmers have convinced him that “food really does connect us all.”


And he said a clear message is that farmers, like everyone else, must be profitable if any strategy is to work.


“There must be profitability within the chain for everyone,” he said. “That is viability.”

In its annual report detailing the global adoption of the seed technology, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications said 16.7 million farmers in 29 countries planted 395 million acres of GM crops in 2011.


That represents an eight percent increase in both farmers and acreage over 2010, although the number of countries remains the same.


ISAAA chair Clive James said at this pace the world will achieve the predictions he made at the end of the first decade of commercialization in 2006 when he forecast a doubling of the 10.3 million farmers, 252 million acres and 22 countries growing GM crops.


“Biotech crops are the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture,” he said during a teleconference announcing the findings of the 2011 report.


But according to Greenpeace, GM crops account for a small fraction of the food grown around the world.


“Contrary to the claims in the report, GE crops remain a global failure with only about one percent of global farmers cultivating GE crops,” senior campaigner Lasse Bruun said in a news release.


Lucy Sharratt, co-ordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, said only seven GM crops have been commercialized and the market is still dominated by two traits — herbicide tolerance and insect resistance. 


“This belies the 20-year-old promises from the biotechnology industry about what they would be able to produce,” she said. “They always say new crops are on the horizon.”


In fact, GM soybean, corn, cotton and canola accounted for 99 percent of biotech acres in 2011.


James said the technology was first put to use in a fibre crop (cotton), then moved into feed crops (corn and soybeans) and will be transitioning into food crops in the coming years.


He anticipates that Golden Rice, a crop designed to remedy vitamin A deficiency, will be approved for commercial production in the Philippines as early as 2013, paving the way for adoption of the technology by other countries in Asia.


James said that would be a major breakthrough for GM food crops. An estimated 250 million farmers grow rice.


“Rice is the most important food crop in the world that feeds half of humanity,” he said.


But it isn’t the only food crop nearing commercialization. A GM eggplant is being field tested in the Philippines and Bangladesh.


And there is the renewed interest in GM wheat research in the United States, Australia and China, where researchers are working on drought tolerance, fusarium resistance, anti-sprouting and improved quality. James anticipates the first GM wheat lines will be commercialized before 2020.


Sharratt scoffs at the notion of the technology moving into food crops.


“Obviously, corporations want to commercialize GM traits in the staple crops of rice and wheat but the public and the markets aren’t going to let that happen,” she said.


She noted that India placed a moratorium on the approval of GM eggplant in 2010. Greenpeace said China and Thailand have suspended commercialization of GM rice.


“(ISAAA is) ignoring the reality of global resistance,” said Sharratt.


Another setback happened in January when BASF announced it was halting development and commercialization of all GM crops targeted for cultivation in the European Union, including Fortuna, a table potato offering complete protection from late blight.


The company will continue to seek EU approval of the product since a package has already been submitted to regulatory authorities.


James said it is important for the EU to approve this product. Late blight is the disease that caused the Irish famine of 1845, which killed one million people. It causes up to $7.5 billion in crop damage annually to the world’s fourth most important food crop.


Restrictive government regulations are the biggest impediment to the continued growth of GM crops. James said that’s a tragedy because the world will consume twice as much food in the next 50 years as it has in the previous 10,000 years.


“Regrettably the vast majority of global society is completely unaware of the formidable challenge of feeding the world of tomorrow. Also, most do not realize the potential contribution of biotechnology.”


James, who worked with Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug for 30 years, said the real benefit is in the alleviation of poverty and hunger and the side benefits that accompany those objectives. 


“(Borlaug) used to insist that you cannot build peace on empty stomachs. He was right,” he said.


James blames the EU for influencing policy makers in some developing countries where impoverished farmers could benefit from the technology. 


But he is encouraged by the 11 percent growth rate in the adoption of GM crops in developing countries in 2011, which was twice as fast as the five percent expansion in industrial countries. 


Developing countries accounted for half of global biotech acreage in 2011, led by Brazil, Argentina, India, China and South Africa. And 90 percent of the 16.7 million farmers growing GM crops are resource-poor producers in developing countries.

Newer, longer acting products as well as anti-inflammatory drugs help to get calves on their feet quicker and minimize relapses.


Daily treatments may still have a place in intensive care cases but the need is reduced significantly.


It is easy to catch sick calves the first time. But as the treatment takes hold and they get stronger, catching them for further treatments can be difficult and cause stress.


A lot of the treatments I suggest for calves are prescription products and you need a valid client-patient relationship with your herd veterinarian to obtain many of these products.


Get your vet’s advice, show how the products are administered and get the tough cases examined.


A “Pr” on the side of the bottle means it is a prescription product and most if not all new products on the market, are prescription.


Young calves are pre-ruminant, which means that because they are on milk like a single stomach animal, the withdrawal times on the products may be altered.


I believe that because slaughter is a long time off, withdrawal time in these cases is a bit irrelevant. The withdrawals for the mature cattle give us a guideline from which to work. 


The new products are sometimes not recommended for young calves because they may take out the normal bacteria in the gut. This means drug selection becomes critical. 


Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs that vets refer to as NSAIDs are being used with greater frequency in most calf diseases. They make calves feel better and help them get back on feed faster.


The newest such product is Metacam, which has two days, effect with a single shot. When used to treat severe scours, the product helped increase calves’ appetite and weight gains were better. Subtle things like gas pains with scours were also reduced. 


This was always given along with the standard electrolytes and antibiotics, which accompany scours treatments. 


These ancillary treatments are an integral part of managing scours and other systemic illnesses in calves. 


On advice from their veterinarian, most producers will carry one form of NSAID with them in their treatment kit. Response times and recovery rates are greatly improved. The cost of treatment is low because of the calf’s small body size.


Some products are delivered subcutaneous, some are intramuscular and others are intravenous so ensure you know the right delivery method for the product.


I have found that unless a calf is older or bigger, there is not much muscle on the neck so I give intramuscular shots in the back leg muscles. I come in directly from behind. 


These are the semi-membranous and semi-tendinous (back thigh) muscles that are not the prime cuts. Also, there is no risk here of damaging the sciatic nerve, which can affect walking. This is the only time I give intramuscular shots in a location other than the neck.


Have product ready and the correct needle size and length. For most intramuscular products in calves, I use an 18 or 20 gauge needle one inch in length.


With many farms now employing later calving, cattle are spread out over greater acreage so it is often imperative to treat with longer acting products, or in severe cases, to bring the cow-calf pair in and treat daily.


Calf catchers or good ropers work and it is beneficial if the calf doesn’t have to be caught again.


One producer I know leaves a light lariat tied over the calf to help with daily treatment. 


When the next treatment time arrives, the producer drives his quad over the end of the rope. The calf is caught with a minimum of stress.


There are long acting products specifically for pneumonia but one has a broad spectrum for both pneumonia and bacterial scours organisms. Excede lasts seven to 10 days in the system and has a low dose of 1.5 cc per 45 kg. It is administered in the ear like an implant. 


This product has been approved in the United States for injection at the base of the ear. Hopefully it will be approved in Canada.


A lot of the previously effective scour products have been removed from the market and because scour tablets end up in the rumen, most veterinarians lean toward injectable products for quicker absorption. 


If treating coccidiosis, the older generation sulfa drugs are still effective. Coccidiosis hits calves when they are several weeks old when the rumen is becoming developed so the sulfa tablets (either daily or long acting) work fairly well. 


Consult your veterinarian every spring to check out the current treatment of scours and other neonatal diseases you could encounter on your farm. 


Death losses can be decreased with prompt treatment. It is gratifying to see a calf you pulled through in the spring become a healthy weaned calf.

It remains operating as usual during the process.


A Queen’s Bench justice in Saskatoon last week authorized the Gravelbourg, Sask.-based company to borrow $250,000 from Granosa AG of Switzerland to fund ongoing operations and develop a plan for the company’s creditors.


MCI’s chief executive officer Tom Halpenny said a recent expansion put the company in trouble.


“We encountered some delays and some cost overruns associated with that,” he said. 


“That, combined with some market events with volatility in the preceding couple of years with mustard prices and contracts as they relate to market events, conspired to have us in a cash challenged position.”


The board evaluated options and took action, he said.


At the same time, the company’s licence under the Canadian Grain Commission was up for renewal.


Halpenny said the company is temporarily de-licensed but has security in place as authorized by the court.


“We’re looking to co-operate with a separate licencee from the grain commission to assist us in the direct purchase of grain from farmers,” he said, adding those arrangements are still being finalized.


Farmers who had delivered before Jan. 31 are covered by the licence that was in place at that time.


MCI opened in 2007 and immediately faced challenges, including escalating mustard prices and competition from European buyers for a smaller crop.


It cleans, processes and mills mustard into ingredients for markets around the world.


A $1.3 million expansion and construction project at Vanguard, Sask., was announced in 2010. Halpenny said the expansion wasn’t a mistake and many projects face the challenge of being on time and on budget.


He said the value-added industry is competitive and operating while undercapitalized became a problem. Support from customers and farmers remains strong.


“That’s what gives us confidence that we’ll retool the company and emerge as a stronger company.”


There are currently 18 employees.


Halpenny added that within 90 to 120 days, the company should have a restructuring plan in place and be out of the court process.


Court documents list all property and assets of MCI subject to a charge in favour of Granosa AG to secure repayment. Ernst & Young, the trustee, and MacPherson, Leslie & Tyerman, legal counsel to MCI, are also priority secured creditors.


Farmers who delivered after Jan. 27 are secured through a $50,000 charge against the property and assets.

Since the 2008 outbreak of listeriosis from products produced at a Toronto Maple Leaf plant, McCain regularly makes a point of taking responsibility.


“Our company was responsible for the deaths of 23 Canadians and thousands more ill,” he said as he started a speech to a Conference Board of Canada food conference Feb. 8. 


“I carry that with me every day.”


Later, he told the conference: “I am in no position to lecture on food safety and I don’t intend to.”


Then he moved to his main point that Maple Leaf has responded to the food safety failure by improving food safety measures in its processing plants and planning to spend $1 billion to close older plants and expand and modernize other plants.


It includes a $120 million investment in the company’s Brandon hog plant that makes it one of the most efficient in North America.


A large bakery operation also has been built in Ontario to consolidate production.


He said within the company and financial community, there were skeptics about Maple Leaf’s investment plans but the restructuring strategy prevailed.


“Canada needs more companies of scale,” he said.


Then came more contrition.


The losers have been hundreds of job and community losses as smaller plants are closed down across the country.


“This was not the path of least resistance,” said McCain. “We do not enjoy doing this.”


He said Canadian processors and agri-food companies must ramp up their scale and investment if they are going to be competitive in the modern global agricultural economy.


“The harsh reality is our lack of competitiveness is a direct hit on our industry.”


McCain said the rising cost of food is a problem for the poor, not just in developing countries, but in Canada as well.


“Over half of Canadians say the cost of food puts pressure on their budget,” he said, more than those who cite higher taxes or other costs.


When pressed by former food sector executive Ron Wasik to explain if supply management rules are part of the problem, McCain acknowledged it is a “politically sensitive issue” but concurred that by supporting smaller farms, supply management is “an impediment” to developing an agricultural sector that is efficient be-cause of economies of scale.


He said the result is higher-than-necessary consumer prices.


McCain said the challenge for the worldwide food industry is to increase production to feed a growing middle class and the world’s hungry.


“We are going to have to produce as much food in the next 40 years as has been produced in the past 500,” he said.


Stuart Clark from the Canadian Foodgrains Bank challenged the assumption that increased production and productivity is the answer to growing world hunger.


The issue is distribution, he said. The world produces enough food but it does not always get to those who need it and too much of the world’s grain production is going into biofuel production.


McCain said historically, access to available food for the world’s poor has been an issue but increasingly, the issue will be increasing productivity to create the supply necessary to meet growing demand.