Reading Time: 2 minutes The federal government has imposed an immediate schedule of increasing mandatory minimum volumes of Prairie grain on Canada’s big two railways, subject to fines. Transport Minister Lisa Raitt on Friday announced an order-in-council, effective immediately, which sets out minimum volumes of grain that Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) are each required to […] Read more
Ottawa slaps Prairie grain volume quotas on railways
More grain cars now would be ‘wrong thing,’ CP CEO says
Reading Time: 3 minutes Canadian Pacific Railway’s CEO has warned readers of Canada’s two national newspapers that adding more rail cars and locomotives now on CP track would serve only to worsen the grain backlog on the Prairies. Writing in full-page CP advertisements in Thursday’s Globe and Mail and National Post, Hunter Harrison said adding more cars to a […] Read more
BMO to cut Prairie farmers slack on loans
Reading Time: 2 minutes BMO Bank of Montreal plans to offer Prairie farmers a “relief program” including options for loan payment deferrals and other breaks in view of the ongoing grain handling backlog. “We want to provide immediate support to any grain producers and other related businesses that may be experiencing cash flow disruptions as a result of the […] Read more
Hog code calls for group sow housing, pain control for piglets
Reading Time: 6 minutes Animal welfare advocates call Canada’s new code of practice for the care and handling of pigs — which commits farmers who follow it to adopt group housing for sows in any new barns built after July this year — a “watershed moment” for the industry. The revised code, replacing the previous version released in 1993, […] Read more
Lethbridge Inland Terminal sale clears regulators
Reading Time: < 1 minute Federal regulators have cleared the road for Viterra to complete its takeover of southern Alberta’s farmer-owned Lethbridge Inland Terminal. Regina-based Viterra, the Canadian grain handling arm of Swiss commodity giant Glencore Xstrata, announced Friday it has now picked up “all pertinent shareholder and regulatory approvals” to buy LIT for an undisclosed sum. LIT, which operates […] Read more
Cereal, pulse treatment cleared for on-farm application
Reading Time: < 1 minute Cereal and pulse crop growers have been cleared for on-farm application of one of Syngenta’s neonicotinoid insecticide seed treatments, for control of pests such as wireworm and pea leaf weevil. Syngenta Canada last week announced it had picked up federal registration for on-farm application of its Cruiser 5FS seed treatment to cereal and pulse seed, […] Read more
Change in SR+ED rule pares back grain growers’ tax credits
Reading Time: 2 minutes Updated, March 7 — Grain growers planning to claim their checkoff payments for a federal Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR+ED) tax credit can expect slightly smaller credits going forward. Starting in the 2013 tax year, changes in federal tax law permit the SR+ED tax credit to be claimed on 80 per cent of eligible […] Read more
PEDv infectiveness not confirmed in piglet feed: CFIA
Reading Time: 2 minutes Federal lab tests still can’t rule piglet feed in or out as a possible source of the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) in Canada. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Monday announced its findings after testing an Ontario company’s hog feed pellets containing U.S.-origin blood plasma from PEDv-infected hogs as an ingredient. [Related story] While […] Read more
PEDv arrives in Sask. on soiled boots, not yet in hogs
Reading Time: 2 minutes Saskatchewan has now officially had a close encounter of the third kind with the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) — but not in hogs. Saskatchewan’s chief veterinary officer Dr. Betty Althouse on Friday reported a confirmed “positive environmental sample” of both PEDv and transmissible gastroenteritis (TGE) in a livestock trailer returning to the province from […] Read more
Calgary’s Big Rock picks B.C. brewery site
Reading Time: 2 minutes Calgary craft brewer Big Rock Brewery has picked a vacant warehouse in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant area for the site of a bigger-than-expected second brewery. The company had announced plans last September to set up and open a second brewery somewhere in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland region, expecting to spend in the range of $1.5 million […] Read more