Articles Written by Kelsey Johnson

Sides of pork in cold storage. (Agnormark/iStock/Getty Images)

Meat leads Canadian industrial producer prices higher in May

By Kelsey Johnson June 30, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ottawa | Reuters — Canadian industrial producer prices rose 1.2 per cent in May on higher prices for meat, fish and dairy products, Statistics Canada said on Monday, as supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic and increased demand boosted meat prices. The gain in producer prices followed four months of consecutive decreases and […] Read more

Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu leaves a news conference in Ottawa on March 23, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Blair Gable)

Crops, Reuters

Health minister calls treatment of some farm workers a ‘national disgrace’

Ministers discussing changes to Canada's TFW program

By Kelsey Johnson June 26, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ottawa | Reuters — The treatment of migrant workers in Canada by some farmers is disgraceful and the federal government is seeking to fix the problem, the country’s health minister told a parliamentary committee on Friday, as farms battle COVID-19 outbreaks among their employees. Outbreaks of coronavirus infections have killed three people and infected hundreds […] Read more

File photo of Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam at a news conference in Ottawa on April 9, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Blair Gable)

Crops, Reuters

Tam seeks details on Ontario’s COVID-19 farm worker guidelines

Windsor-Essex area reports six ag-related outbreaks as of Thursday

By Allison Martell, Kelsey Johnson June 25, 2020

Reading Time: 3 minutes Ottawa/Toronto | Reuters — Canada’s top public health official said on Thursday she plans to seek more information from Ontario about the province’s plan to allow some COVID-19 positive people with no symptoms to return to their jobs — a risky policy, according to workers’ advocates and some doctors. Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, issued […] Read more

General, Markets, Reuters

CERB plan, U.S. border closure both extended

By Kelsey Johnson, Steve Scherer June 16, 2020

Reading Time: < 1 minute Ottawa | Reuters — Canada will extend by eight weeks federal income support for those who lost their jobs amid the COVID-19 outbreak, and the border with the United States will remain closed to non-essential travel, the prime minister said on Tuesday. The Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), which delivers $500 per week to those […] Read more

An image created by Nexu Science Communication, together with Trinity College in Dublin, shows a model structurally representative of a betacoronavirus, the type of virus linked to COVID-19. (Nexu Science Communication via Reuters)

General

COVID-19 cases, deaths lead Ontario to test migrant farm workers

By Allison Martell, Kelsey Johnson June 10, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Toronto/Ottawa | Reuters — Ontario has started testing about 8,000 migrant farm workers for COVID-19 in a hard-hit rural region of the province after two young workers died and the coronavirus was found on at least 17 farms, according to the local public health authority. The Ontario outbreak has centred on farms in the Windsor-Essex […] Read more

A worker leans on a rack of potted flowers at Sheridan Nurseries in Toronto on May 8, 2020, the first day that garden centres re-opened in Ontario from COVID-19 restrictions. (Photo: Reuters/Chris Helgren)

Crops, Markets, Reuters

Canada’s growers look to reopening garden centres to salvage dire year

By Kelsey Johnson May 8, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ottawa | Reuters — Hard-hit Canadian flower and nursery growers hope a surge in demand from budding gardeners in Ontario, the country’s biggest market, can help the industry avert disaster caused by the coronavirus with retailers reopening on Friday in the populous province. Most non-essential businesses in Canada were shut in mid-March as officials urged […] Read more

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa in this April 24, 2020 file photo. (Photo: Reuters/Blair Gable)

General, Markets

Trudeau pledges $252 million in COVID-19 aid for farmers, processors

Dairy commission's credit line extended for storage program

By Kelsey Johnson May 5, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ottawa | Reuters — Canada will invest $252 million to help some of the country’s farming and food processing sectors weather the coronavirus outbreak, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday, adding more money could come later if needed. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture, one of Canada’s biggest farm groups, asked Ottawa last week for an […] Read more

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks in the House of Commons on April 20, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Blair Gable)

Livestock, Markets, Reuters

Canada sees no beef shortage, but prices may rise due to coronavirus

JBS plant at Brooks dials back to one shift

By Kelsey Johnson, Rod Nickel April 21, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ottawa/Winnipeg | Reuters –– The Canadian government is not expecting a beef shortage despite the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in certain meat-packing plants, though prices may rise, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday. Trudeau added that beef producers are placing a priority on supplying the Canadian market before exporting products. Canada, one of […] Read more

Beef Cattle, Livestock, Markets, Reuters

Cargill to temporarily idle High River beef plant

Packing plant hit by COVID-19 outbreak; another 67 cases linked to JBS plant

By Kelsey Johnson April 20, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — Cargill Ltd. said Monday it had begun the process of temporarily idling its beef plant at High River, Alta. because of the COVID-19 outbreak as provincial health officials said hundreds of workers at the plant had become infected. In her daily media update, Alberta chief medical officer Deena Hinshaw said a total of […] Read more

File photo of the Harmony Beef plant at Balzac, Alta. in 2015. (Canadian Cattlemen photo by Debbie Furber)

Beef Cattle, Livestock, Reuters

Alberta’s Harmony Beef halts slaughter on positive COVID-19 test

CFIA pulls inspectors after plant employee tests positive

By Kelsey Johnson, Rod Nickel March 27, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ottawa/Winnipeg | Reuters — Harmony Beef, an Alberta packing plant, halted cattle slaughter on Friday after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) kept some inspectors from work, due to a positive test for COVID-19 by a Harmony worker, the company said. The partial closure follows a positive COVID-19 test by a worker at U.S. chicken […] Read more

Klassen: Feed barley rally pressures feeder cattle market

Rodent poisons allowed on B.C. farms during temporary ban

BHP reaches port services deal for potash mine

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