If you saw the 2011 movie Contagion, you know how bird flu can be vilified. Movie goers left the theatre scared senseless that any traveller they encountered could be a ticking time bomb, as a result of a virus that appeared to spread from the close association between poultry and humans on some Asian farms.... Read More
Category: Canadian Agricultural Policy
The Supreme Court of Canada has decided it will not hear the class action case brought forward by four farmers representing the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board. The decision upheld previous rulings by the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal, which rejected most of the group's $17 billion lawsuit against the federal... Read More
To underline the value of research at universities in the province, the Council of Ontario Universities has launched a campaign inviting the public to vote on what it considers to be the top 50 “game changing” research breakthroughs in the past century. Universities were asked to forward their suggestions to the council, which then chose... Read More
The head of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is accusing the union that represents food inspectors of "unnecessarily undermining Canadians' confidence in their food safety system." The Agriculture Union issued a news release this week saying cost-cutting within the CFIA is creating an inspector shortage that is putting Canadians' health at risk. As an example,... Read More
Nobody wants to be stuck with a crop that suddenly has no market, especially when it’s due to avoidable circumstances. While Canada’s regulatory process and international trade policies are designed to prevent situations where residues from pesticides and other tools used to grow crops become trade obstacles, each farmer must still carry out their own... Read More
The Ontario government released today its draft regulation concerning the sale and use of neonicotinoid treated corn and soybean seed as of July 1, 2015. The draft regulation is open for comments until May 7, 2015. The stated goal of the regulations is to reduce neonic-treated corn and soy acres by 80% by 2017. In... Read More
The Canadian poultry sector is working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to minimize the impact the outbreak of H5N2 avian influenza in the U.S. has at home. Following findings of the highly pathogenic strain, the CFIA has restricted imports of live birds and poultry products from Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and... Read More
There's still no indication when South Korea will lift the temporary ban on Canadian beef it implemented following the discovery of a cow with BSE in Alberta in early February. While the BSE case did not impact trade in most of Canada's export markets, Korea and several smaller markets temporarily suspended imports of Canadian beef,... Read More
The National Bee Health Roundtable (BHRT) recently held its third workshop in Ottawa. The roundtable, a coalition of stakeholders with a direct interest in the health of bees, reports making clear progress over the last year evidenced by the release of the National Bee Health Action Plan. “The collaborative approach of the roundtable, which brings... Read More
A proposal for a one-million-acre set-aside for pollinators in Ontario by 2018 sounds like something a government or activists would propose, and farmers would lose their minds over. What? A million acres in a province losing 350 acres of prime farmland a day to development? But now, this set-aside program, the gemstone in the new... Read More