It is difficult to gauge the exact worth of dairy quotas in Canada, but it’s easy to conclude the market value is enormous, at least on paper. With quota prices soaring to historic highs across Canada during the past year – more than $31,000 to buy quota for the equivalent of one cow’s production in […] Read more
Stories by Barry Wilson
CFIA denies allowing dangerous animal feed
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency vehemently denies persistent and long-standing accusations from a health advocacy group that Canada imported potentially dangerous animal feed from Europe as recently as 2002. The Canadian Health Coalition, supported in part by the Canadian Labour Congress, has insisted for years that Canada has imported feed material that could cause bovine […] Read more
PMRA defends timetable
A wide perception gap continues to yawn between what the Pest Management Regulatory Agency says is happening in pesticide registration progress, and what industry and politicians see. On June 2, PMRA and Agriculture Canada officials were on Parliament Hill assuring MPs that Canada’s effort to streamline the registration system to get more minor-use and less […] Read more
Keep risky material out of feed: FAO
The only way of guaranteeing that the animal feed system is safe from potential contamination by bovine spongiform encephalopathy is to ban ruminant protein from all animal feed, says a senior United Nations animal health specialist. Andrew Speedy, a senior official in the Food and Agriculture Organization’s animal production and health division, said in an […] Read more
One cow will challenge federal safety net plans – Opinion
THE case of one lonely northern Alberta mad cow will answer some key questions about Ottawa’s much-promoted agricultural policy framework that Canadian farm leaders have been asking. Will the new disaster program prove up to the task when a significant sector of agriculture is facing a financial crisis? When farm leaders were (and still are) […] Read more
BSE fuels push for one standard
Federal and provincial agriculture ministers are under increasing pressure to design one national food inspection system in the aftermath of bovine spongiform encephalopathy’s discovery on an Alberta farm, says federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief. The issue likely will be on the agenda when ministers meet in Winnipeg in early July. Vanclief told a May 29 […] Read more
Beef block booed
Comments from provincial politicians last week about building a firewall to keep western beef out of Eastern Canada quickly grew into a political storm and a fast retreat. It started when Quebec Liberal premier Jean Charest used a visit by Prince Edward Island premier Pat Binns to complain that Quebec’s cattle industry should not be […] Read more
Science-based reasons lost in search for scapegoat – Opinion
WHEN prime minister Jean Chrétien used an overseas trip last week to complain about the $500 billion US deficit being run up this year by U.S. president George Bush, many people in the beleaguered Canadian cattle industry exploded. True, if Canada was running a $75 billion deficit, Canadian conservative and business forces would be in […] Read more
Ag Canada budget down, but guaranteed by law
Agriculture Canada’s budget will fall 25 percent to $2 billion next year when the agricultural policy framework is fully in effect, senior department officials said May 29. But assistant deputy minister Bruce Deacon told MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee that farmers will be better off because that $2 billion will be guaranteed […] Read more
GM label rules head to vote
A committee that has spent more than three years trying to devise rules for voluntarily labelling of genetically modified food may be on the verge of success. Doryne Peace, chair of a Canadian General Standards Board committee on GM labeling, told a House of Commons committee May 28 that a stalemate over labelling standards may […] Read more
