“Some positive news coming out of Beijing, which is great,” said Delaney Ross Burtnak, executive director of Manitoba Canola Growers Association. “This is a preliminary announcement at this point, so there’s still some work to do to understand what it means and what the final decision will be.”

The proposed agreement would ease tariffs on Canadian canola as part of a broader trade package between Canada and China, raising hopes for improved market access after months of disruption.

Ross Burtnak welcomed the significant reduction of canola seed tariffs and the expected elimination of the tariff on canola meal.

“That’s good news,” she said. “We’re not sure what’s happening with canola oil, so we need to understand that a little further.”

Ross Burtnak said tariffs have affected farmers most clearly through price and uncertainty. She noted there appeared to be an uptick in canola prices following news of the proposed tariff reductions, but said the bigger concern over the past 17 months has been whether farmers would be able to sell their canola at all.

“If the elevator or exporter doesn’t have a market to sell that canola into, they’re not going to be buying it from farmers,” she said. “This decision helps prevent that worst-case scenario.”

Ross Burtnak said the announcement offers some reassurance after a prolonged period of uncertainty for canola growers.

“There’s definitely some cautious optimism with this news this morning,” she said.

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KAP said the agreement in principle, which would ease tariffs on Canadian canola in exchange for reduced tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, is a welcome move for canola growers after years of trade friction.

However, KAP general manager Colin Hornby says the announcement still leaves unanswered questions for other Manitoba commodities.

“Overall, I would say it’s positive and moving in the right direction to see the tariff relief on canola products,” Hornby said. “Ultimately, we would like to see a permanent solution.”

He said KAP is also encouraged by renewed diplomatic engagement between Canada and China.

However, he said details remain unclear around canola oil.

“As for canola oil, it’s unclear. I don’t believe it was mentioned, so we’re still seeking clarity on whether canola oil is going to be impacted or not,” Hornby said.

From a Manitoba perspective, Hornby added pork remains outside the scope of the announcement.

“That’s something we’re going to continue discussing with the federal government and advocating for — the removal of tariffs on pork going to China,” he said.

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The agreement centres on easing long-standing trade barriers on Canadian canola, with Canada offering tariff concessions on Chinese electric vehicles as part of the package. While that shift is being welcomed by much of the ag sector, pork is not explicitly addressed.

“There are ongoing tariffs on pork into China — 25 per cent,” said Cam Dahl, general manager of Manitoba Pork. “It’s not a minor inconvenience. It’s a market that is important to us.”

At the same time, Dahl said the proposed reduction in canola tariffs is a clear positive.

“The reduction in canola tariffs from 85 to 15 per cent is good for Manitoba, good for Western Canada, and good for agriculture,” he said. “So we’re pleased to see some progress, while recognizing there is still ongoing work to do, especially when it comes to pork.”

A federal statement explaining the deal said Canada expects China to provide tariff relief for products such as peas and seafood in 2026 but made no mention of pork.

“I’m sure the pork tariffs were a topic of discussion,” Dahl said. “But we have more work to do.”

Dahl said the broader reset in relations with China is still welcome.

“This is a positive step forward. It will be good for Canadian agriculture,” he said.

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The article was initially published in 2000 in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. A retraction notice, published by Elsevier, the company that oversees the journal, cites undisclosed conflicts of interest, unacknowledged contributions from Monsanto employees and reliance on unpublished Monsanto studies. It concludes that the retraction of the study was necessary to maintain the integrity of the journal.

“The scientific concerns … regarding (ghost-) authorship(s) and potential conflicts of interest, none of which have been responded to, are sufficient to warrant this action,” the retraction authors said.

Health Canada said the withdrawal does not affect its current assessment of glyphosate because the review was only one source among many.

“While this review was previously considered in our assessment, it is important to note that the primary data sources were independently evaluated by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA),” the department said. “Therefore, the retraction of this review does not affect our previous review conclusions.”

The department said its 2017 re-evaluation considered more than 1,300 studies and remains consistent with the most recent 2023 review by European regulators. PMRA will continue monitoring international assessments and new scientific research.

Monsanto, whose internal studies and communications were cited in the retraction notice, was acquired by Bayer in 2018. The company has faced continuing lawsuits over glyphosate products, creating uncertainty about Bayer’s long-term commitment to glyphosate.

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The reports, released on March 20, highlight the relatively small environmental footprint of Canadian non-durum wheat, durum wheat, barley, and oats, when compared to top producing countries.

“Canada is a global leader in the production of high-quality, nutritious, and sustainable cereal grains,” said Mark Walker, Cereals Canada’s vice-president of markets and trade. “These reports confirm that Canadian farmers grow some of the most sustainable crops in the world.”

The reports stack Canada up against Australia, France, Italy, Sweden, and the U.S., tracking six sustainability indicators—carbon footprint, soil health, fertilizer use, irrigation, pesticides and erosion. By these measures, Canadian cereals consistently stand out.

For example, the carbon footprint of Canadian wheat is significantly lower per tonne of grain than wheat from the United States or Australia. That’s thanks to soils that lock in carbon. Practices like reduced tillage, diverse crop rotations, and cover cropping have boosted carbon sequestration and cut soil erosion, turning Canadian soils into a substantial CO2 sink.

“Canadian farmers have responded to demands for sustainable food production by adopting technologies and conservation management practices that have reduced the environmental impact of Canadian grain production,” said Walker. “These reports will be a useful tool in helping us communicate the sustainability of Canadian cereals to our global customers in existing and potential markets, and to policy makers here at home.”

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“We’re making an assumption that sustainability isn’t going away,” said Bryan Prystupa, senior product owner for FCC AgExpert. “Regardless of campaign slogans or what political colour is leading our country, if we focus on the value we can deliver for the farmer, none of that should matter.”

Prystupa was talking about AgExpert’s new feature at Manitoba Ag Days 2025 in Brandon on Wednesday.

AgExpert is two different, but related software products. AgExpert Accounting, which Prystupa describes as similar to QuickBooks, delves into the bookkeeping and financial management of a farm. AgExpert Field is a field record keeping tool that tracks things like field boundaries, yield data, and various other activities associated with farming to help calculate that cost of production. The sustainability tool is an option that was recently added to AgExpert Field.

Basically, the tool takes the data already being collected to track production costs and creates reports that give farmers insights into their net carbon footprint.

“It can estimate the carbon my farm sequestered last year and the history of my soil organic carbon going as far back as 40 years, all with two clicks,” said Prystupa.

He stressed that greenhouse gas emissions are only half of the equation.

“It was very important for us to also measure the carbon sequestration getting pumped into the dirt, the soil organic carbon, thanks to the crops, the pastureland and the tree belt.”

Prystupa said the developers made certain that the sustainability feature is non-judgmental. It won’t tell a farmer that they need to do better. “We are neutral,” he said, adding that the feature is also optional. “If there’s interest by a user, great and if there isn’t, no sweat either.”

Read more about AgExpert’s sustainability tool in an upcoming print edition. For more stories on Manitoba Ag Days 2025, visit, our landing page.

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“Verticillium is a new disease to Canada,” said Cornelsen. “It was first identified on a farm south of Winnipeg in 2014, but it has now been identified in many other production regions.”

As a result, very little is known about the disease.

Canola yields were down across the Prairies last year. Cornelsen said much of the yield loss has been attributed to heat stress and drought loss in Saskatchewan and to blackleg in Alberta. But poor yields coincided with a severe outbreak of verticillium in Manitoba, and many farmers and agronomists are thinking the soil-borne disease might be the issue. But Cornelsen said it’s hard to pin down exactly how verticillium affects yield.

“There’s nothing to really validate that those were the primary losses, just anecdotes and field evidence,” she said. “When we look to yield losses for verticillium, we don’t have a good answer.”

The problem is, because it’s so new, very little research has been done in Canada.

“It’s probably only been the last five years that this disease has been taken seriously, where there’s been investment into research and a more focused effort,” she said.

Since research projects can take up to five years, and since 2020 was basically a write-off because of COVID, in many cases we’re only seeing the very earliest results from that research now.

While the disease is new to Canada, the brassica-loving species verticillium longisporum that was discovered here in 2014 was first discovered in Germany on horseradish in 1960. As a result, it would make sense that plant pathologists could lean on European research to deal with the disease. Unfortunately, the Europeans have been no help.

“They actually kind of try to spin it as a positive,” said Cornelsen. “It’s a kind of a natural, dry-down product for them, thought to help with harvestability.”

Because it’s a soil-borne disease, fungicides won’t be effective. For the same reason, crop rotation, the go-to for any integrated pest management approach, isn’t all that effective because canola is everywhere and the disease is wind-borne.

So, a lot of the hope and expectation is for some kind of silver bullet from plant breeders to develop resistant hybrids.

But Cornelsen cautions that rushing something to market isn’t always the best idea. She pointed to clubroot. It was discovered in 2003 and within six or seven years, new resistant hybrids came on the market. But within four years, those hybrids were overcome.

“We want to provide a product that’s going to have some longevity and help solve our answers to verticillium,” she said. “It’s tough to provide any sort of management practices, but we are working on it.

Keep an eye out for a future print edition for more on verticillium longisporum. And visit our launch page for more coverage of Manitoba Ag Days 2025.

—Updated Jan. 29. Corrects spelling of Justine Cornelsen’s name.

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Karen Fatteicher, an agronomist with 360 Ag Consulting, said she once asked a friend who is a farmer what kind of canola she grew. Her friend answered, “The cheapest.” But Fatteicher advised that it’s best not to let price dictate the variety you choose.

“If somebody is trying to sell you something that’s on the shelf, it’s on the shelf for a reason,” she said. “You will not grow yourself into prosperity by saving on seed costs. Keep moving the needle with your varieties.”

While it’s important not to choose a variety based solely on cost, Brunel Sabourin, an agronomist with Antara Agronomy, said the opposite is also true. Choosing a variety specifically because it offers higher returns could also have unforeseen consequences.

“We have a lot of growers who would like to chase specialty canola oils that often have a premium attached,” said Sabourin. “We need to ask ourselves: Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

He said if the grower has to make compromises to grow that variety and, as a result, ends up with a stubborn weed problem, it could mean spending more on herbicides or other expenses associated with dealing with the issue.

Panelist Breanna Miller-Friesen, an agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, had a different take on the same question.

“I think it goes back to the problem we’re trying to solve,” she said. “Say we have a clubroot issue. If the trade-off is a couple of bushels of yield versus a clubroot infestation, that makes our decision a lot easier. It’s definitely worth that potential yield loss versus, say, developing a weed resistance issue.”

To catch more of their conversation, keep an eye out for more in upcoming print editions. More Ag Days news, video and more can be found on our Manitoba Ag Days 2025 landing page.

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“Aster yellows is a disease that makes yellow things green,” said Tyler Wist, research scientist, field crop entomology with Agriculture and Agrifood Canada’s Saskatoon branch at Manitoba Ag Days 2025 in Brandon.

The disease is not specific to canola. It can infect many grasses and broadleaf plants. But in canola, it can have a devastating effect on pod development. Instead of the standard canola pod, the pods are like large green bladders.

“If we cut them open, all the seeds have turned into tiny little leaf-like things,” said Wist, who added that it could mean complete yield loss in that plant if it was infected early enough.

Most years, the incidence rate is less than 0.1 per cent incidence, but in 2012, there was a serious outbreak of aster yellows on the Canadian Prairies. That infestation saw incidences of between five and 64 per cent in fields and caused an estimated $400 million in canola losses.

“That’s the one everyone remembers,” said Wist, but he added that 2023 saw incidences as high as 36 per cent.

Interestingly, there is a correlation between drought in the areas where they breed (in the Great Plains around Nebraska and South Dakota) and the level of infection we get up here in Canada.

Wist explained that what is happening is, if the leafhopper is feeding on wheat or barley down south, there won’t typically be a bad outbreak up here. But if there is a drought in that area, the bugs will feed on weeds where they pick up the bacterial infection and then float on the winds to infect crops in the Canadian Prairies.

For more news, previews and videos, see our Manitoba Ag Days 2025 landing page.

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The funding was announced Oct. 15 by Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid, on behalf of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Minister Lawrence MacAulay, at the industry group’s pasta lab in Winnipeg.

“Our government is building on our long legacy of support for Cereals Canada,” said Duguid.

The funding falls under two programs within the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (S-CAP).

The larger of the two accounts for $6,660,817 over three years and comes via the AgriMarketing Program. That program aims to increase market access, improve customer support and expand exports through initiatives like technical exchanges, market research and knowledge sharing among stakeholders.

Duguid said that funding will help further open international markets to Canadian agricultural products. He pointed to the opening of a trade office in Manila in the Philippines earlier this year.

“The funding will help exporters leverage new digital tools, navigate market access barriers and meet the needs of our customers around the world,” he said.

The remaining $674,249 is funded through the AAFC AgriScience Program—Projects Component. That funding is focused on research into how environmental conditions impact cereal crop quality during the growing season.

One program set to benefit from those funds is a four-year research initiative looking at how environmental conditions affect oat quality.

“Our oat research aims to enhance our understanding of Canadian oat quality and how it performs as an ingredient,” said Dean Dias, chief executive officer of Cereals Canada. “This information will strengthen Canada’s position in the global market, potentially increasing the value and demand for Canadian oats as a premium food ingredient and supporting our value chain.”

Dias welcomed the support from the federal government.

“This funding enables us to amplify our resources, maintain and grow markets and foster industry relationships and advocacy, helping to ensure the long-term competitiveness and sustainability of Canada’s cereals industry,” he said.

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