Mary MacArthur

Interest is high to buy one of Alberta’s largest oats processing facilities, said the receiver in charge of the sale. “There is a fair amount of interest (in Alberta Oats),” said Don MacLean with PriceWaterhouseCoopers of Edmonton. The receiver has set Oct. 17 as the final date to accept offers on the oats processing facility […] Read more

For the second month in a row, the amount of beef consumed by grocery stores and their customers has increased. In July, the amount of beef that had disappeared from the grocery coolers was 53 percent higher, or 116,000 tonnes more, than July 2002. In August, the amount of beef purchased was 40 percent higher, […] Read more

The Alberta government has donated $150,000 to the Calgary Inter-Faith Food Bank to be used to buy meat and distribute it to food banks across the province. Premier Ralph Klein said this type of donation provides an opportunity to support the beef industry and assist those in need. Scott Hickling, president of the Calgary Inter-Faith […] Read more

Producers of meat other than beef feel they’ve been unfairly treated by Canada and by foreign countries that have stopped imports of their animals. “We feel lost in the shuffle,” said Linda Sautner of the Alberta Bison Commission. The federal government announced non-beef ruminants would be included in the $460 million bovine spongiform encephalopathy recovery […] Read more

Alberta dairy farmers have given up waiting for a political solution for their cull cows and have found their own way to deal with the backlog of old cows. Instead of taking them to the auction markets, the producer arm of Alberta Milk has arranged to ship the cattle direct to XL Beef’s slaughter plant […] Read more

The Alberta New Democrats are calling for a public inquiry into how the government has handled the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis. ND MLA Brian Mason said only an arms length investigation into how the province handled the BSE investigation would restore the confidence of Canada’s beef trading partners. “In light of the premier’s comments yesterday, […] Read more

British Columbia cattle producers say they are beginning to feel like the poor cousin. Their provincial government is the only one in the West that hasn’t offered additional financial assistance to cattle producers affected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy. “Our government hasn’t been able to come forward with any additional funding assistance and other governments certainly […] Read more

Owners of all 650,000 Alberta animals that were in a feedlot as of May 20, when the borders closed to Canadian cattle, have received some provincial assistance, said Alberta Agriculture officials in announcing the end of the province’s third BSE assistance program. “We’ve fully met our commitment to industry and moved significantly more animals through […] Read more

One of Canada’s largest cattle slaughter companies, XL Foods, has a bid in to buy a mothballed Alberta pork plant. Lee Nilsson, one of the chief executive officers of Nilsson Brothers, which owns XL Foods, confirmed the company bid $3.3 million for the JTB Canadian Pork plant at Barrhead, Alta., with a $500,000 deposit. XL […] Read more

EDMONTON – With a little luck and a few more donations for freight, people in Ukraine will be eating the same kinds of Nantes carrots and Homesteader peas that Canadians reap from their gardens every year. Tony Stoeckl, a grain farmer from Baldonnel, B.C., has arranged to ship 155,000 packages of Canadian garden seed worth […] Read more