“I look forward to working with the team in advocating on behalf of Canada’s meat industry and delivering value to members. It will be a pleasure to continue working in the agriculture and agri-food space in Ottawa,” Larkin said in a Dec. 9 LinkedIn post.

The Canadian Meat Council represents members of the Canadian meat processing industry.

Earlier this month, Larkin announced he would step down from his role at Grain Growers of Canada. December will be Larkin’s final month at the organization. He’ll officially assume the CEO role on Jan. 19, 2026, the Canadian Meat Council said in a news release.

“He brings the strategic understanding, relationship-building skills and member-focused approach needed to position our industry for long-term success,” said council board chair Russ Mallard.

The meat council said the transition comes at a “critical time for CMC and the broader meat industry,” given growing pressures in areas like trade and regulation.

The post Larkin appointed CEO of Canadian Meat Council appeared first on Country Guide.

“The chance to demonstrate our commitment to such an important market is an opportunity that we are very excited about.” said David Typer, chair of the Canadian Meat Advocacy Board, in a Canadian Meat Council news release.

“We will soon begin our search for a China representative. Once the hiring process is complete, operations will be launched.”

The Canadian Meat Advocacy Office is a collaboration between the Canadian Meat Council, Canadian Pork Council and the Canadian Cattle Association.

The group called the office a tangible demonstration that the Canadian pork and beef sectors are eager to have a stronger presence in the Chinese market.

Goals of the office include advancing the interests of Canadian red meat in China, establishing and enhancing the presence of Canadian meat in the Chinese market, addressing market access issues, mitigating potential trade disruption, and building trust with Chinese officials, industry leaders according to a job posting on recruiting website Glassdoor.

Red meat is just one sector that has struggled with fraught relations between Canada and China. In 2019, China blocked shipments of Canadian pork and beef, citing bogus export certificates, as tensions escalated following the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. China also stopped purchasing Canadian canola seed, citing pest concerns.

The post Canadian red meat groups to open advocacy office in Beijing  appeared first on Country Guide.

Both organizations highlighted the need for an African Swine Fever trade recovery program to regain market access and stabilize the industry in the case of an outbreak. They also expressed their needs for a reliable agricultural workforce and asked the government to prioritize solutions to support the industry’s year-round needs.

“These were important days for our industry,” said CPC chair René Roy. “By joining forces with the Canadian Meat Council, we presented a united front to advocate for the priorities of the Canadian pork sector. Our conversations emphasized the urgent need to address challenges like ASF, expand trade opportunities, and agriculture’s unique labour needs, priorities which are crucial for sustaining and growing our industry. We look forward to continuing to work with policymakers to advance these priorities.”

“Our joint lobby day showcased the power of collaboration,” said Chris White, president and CEO of CMC and Canada Pork. “Together, we were able to effectively spotlight issues affecting both producers and processors in a way that demonstrates our industry’s cohesive vision for the future. We are grateful to all the parliamentarians and officials who joined us and look forward to building on these discussions.”

The post Pork representatives meet with parliamentarians appeared first on Country Guide.

The organizations involved in Canada’s National Beef Strategy — the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Canada Beef Breeds Council, Beef Cattle Research Council, Canada Beef, The National Cattle Feeders’ Association, Canadian Meat Council and Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef have announced new 2030 goals.

Goals have been announced on three topics so far — greenhouse gas and carbon sequestration; animal health and welfare and land use and biodiversity — with another four topics to come next year.

Strategy organizations have set a goal to “safeguard the existing 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon stored on lands managed with beef cattle,” on top of sequestering an additional 3.4 million tonnes of carbon every year through grazing management and a focus on soil health.

Those gains would reflect the change if all tame pasture and hay acres sequestered carbon at half of the 70-year historical rate, the team developing the goals have said.

The goals would also see the industry’s greenhouse gas emission intensity drop by 33 per cent.

“We looked at what our long-term performance was in a number of areas and said, ‘What if we just continued to do what we have historically?'” said Brenna Grant, Canfax manager and one of the presenters of the goals at their launch on Wednesday (Sept. 16).

“And then we talked about some major breakthroughs — major breakthroughs in terms of technology and innovation or major breakthroughs in terms of adoption rates for certain practices.”

Those breakthrough scenarios are anticipated to create the desired emissions drop.

On animal health, organizations hope to see a 92 per cent reproductive efficiency across the industry (up from 85 per cent reported in 2018), refocus breeding on traits that support animal health such as calving ease and polled genes, encourage management strategies around things like pain relief, and create a national monitoring system to track practices. Other goals would better outline best antimicrobial practices to, “ensure the effectiveness of existing and future antimicrobials is preserved.

Other goals orient around maintaining the native grassland used for beef production and encouraging ecosystems on grazing land. The 2016 census of agriculture noted a 4.4 per cent decline of tame and native pastures from 2011 to 2016 as more producers opted for annual crops.

“We knew that we needed a market mechanism in order to achieve this,” Grant said. “So yes, focusing on economic viability of producers, but also by supporting programs that incentivize conservation and working with other crop groups across Canada to make sure that this happens.”

Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, said the implementation of those goals will depend largely on increasing the efficiency of each operation.

According to documents on the strategy’s website, some of those tools include increased vaccination, the adoption of different pasture management and low-stress handling, increased extension, encouraging feed plans, body condition scoring, and feed testing, pursuing more research on pasture management, and more extension and education, among others.

“They’re ambitious goals,” Laycraft admitted. “But our producer network that we worked with when we set this up really encouraged us to follow ambitious goals. I think Canada will be one of the world leaders and, at the same time, it is our goal to make sure whenever we do this we actually make our industry stronger in the process.”

The organizations expect to launch 2030 goals on water; beef quality and food safety; human health and safety and technology next year.

For more details, keep an eye on upcoming issues of the Manitoba Co-operator.

— Alexis Stockford is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator.

The post Beef sector aims for new 2030 targets appeared first on Country Guide.

The news agency quoted a notice from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada which said the Canadian embassy in Beijing had been informed of the boost in inspections.

AAFC’s notice, according to Reuters, said Chinese officials were citing “recent cases of non-compliance of pork shipments” for the move and were also connecting it to anti-smuggling efforts and limiting risk of African swine fever.

Outbreaks of African swine fever have been reported in hogs in nearly every region of mainland China since the disease first appeared there last August.

Some analysts have predicted China’s hog herd could lose up to 200 million pigs to the disease or culls, with ripple effects through meat and livestock feed markets worldwide.

Reuters on Tuesday also quoted a Canadian Meat Council (CMC) memo to members in which the meatpacking industry body warned members to “increase significantly the surveillance and compliance with all requirements.”

Any non-compliance “could jeopardize our entire meat exports to China, which would have a disastrous effect on all CMC members,” the council’s memo was quoted as saying.

Two Canadian pork exporters’ permits to ship to China were suspended last month due to what Canadian officials described as a labeling problem with shipments.

China in March also suspended canola export licenses for two major Canadian grain firms and Chinese buyers have since been unwilling to purchase Canada’s canola seed otherwise.

Bilateral trade relations between Canada and China took a turn for the worse back in December when Canadian officials arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer for Chinese tech company Huawei, in Vancouver.

Meng, now in Vancouver under house arrest, was detained at the request of the U.S. government, which seeks her extradition on fraud charges relating to alleged violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran.

Reuters also reported Tuesday that a federal court hearing will be held Thursday to set further court dates related to the extradition case.

However, no date for an extradition hearing itself has yet been scheduled, Canadian justice department officials were quoted as saying. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post China to ramp up inspections on all Canadian meat imports appeared first on Country Guide.

The pact aims to eliminate tariffs on industrial and farm products across an 11-nation bloc whose trade totaled $356.3 billion last year (all figures US$).

This week’s compromise saves member nations from having to renegotiate the ambitious trade pact to accommodate the New Zealand government’s demands for firm measures to rein in housing prices.

It also brings member countries closer to an important victory in support of free trade to be finalized at an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit next week in Vietnam’s central city of Danang.

“The momentum towards (an agreement) at the meeting in Danang has significantly increased,” said Japan’s chief TPP negotiator, Kazuyoshi Umemoto.

Negotiators gathered for three days in Urayasu, just east of Tokyo, to narrow down which terms of the original 12-nation deal to suspend, so as to salvage the pact at the Vietnam summit.

Canada though played down the chances of any kind of formal deal next week, citing the need to ensure the provisions in a new TPP treaty would not cause problems at ongoing talks to update the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement. The NAFTA talks are due to wrap up next March.

“We’re moving quite expeditiously but it’s probably going to take a little longer, so as for a signature (next week) — that’s highly optimistic,” said an Ottawa source familiar with the government’s position.

‘Competitive advantage’

Canadian farm groups have pressed their officials for a deal that would help them expand market access to Japan and the other TPP countries, including Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam.

Among other TPP nations, Canada already has free trade pacts in place with Chile, Peru and, through NAFTA, Mexico.

“Canada’s pork producers request that the government of Canada work to ensure a TPP-11 agreement is implemented without jeopardizing the negotiated outcomes on market access that were agreed to in the original TPP agreement,” Canadian Pork Council chair Rick Bergmann, a producer from Steinbach, Man., said in a release Tuesday.

A TPP-11 deal would give Canadian canola “a competitive advantage over competing oilseed products entering TPP countries, such as U.S. soybean oil into Japan,” the Canola Council of Canada said Tuesday in a separate release.

The Canadian Meat Council on Wednesday said a TPP-11 deal would help boost Canadian meat exports to Japan by $500 million.

Without quick implementation of a deal, the council added, Canada “risks losing a critical competitive advantage to other large exporters such as the European Union.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was sworn in last week, has announced plans to ban foreign home purchases that should curb speculation without forcing TPP countries to renegotiate the pact.

Japan hopes the deal, which links 11 countries with a combined GDP of $12.4 trillion, can show other nations it is able to champion free trade.

It could also help Japan resist U.S. pressure for a two-way trade pact, which is likely to come up when U.S. President Donald Trump visits, from Sunday until Tuesday, for a summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The TPP pact was thrown into doubt when Trump pulled the U.S. out in January to prioritize protecting jobs. New Zealand and Vietnam subsequently pushed to renegotiate it, but countries have been able to narrow their differences in the final stretch.

— Reporting for Reuters by Kaori Kaneko and Stanley White in Urayasu and David Ljunggren in Ottawa. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

The post TPP talks without U.S. near final stretch appeared first on Country Guide.

“We don’t only sell halal meat, we have a variety of products coming from all over the world, coming from Syria, from Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia. This is why you need to be at the store to see it all, there is so much here,” he says, pointing to shelves stacked high beyond his own reach with tea sets and kitchen accessories.

After directing one customer to a nearby freezer and pausing to quickly say “As-salãmu ‘alaykum” to another, Abdulrehman leads the way to a side room, pulling out a variety of well worn chairs and stools before settling in.

“I will start with this,” says the owner of Halal Meat Centre & Speciality Foods, leaning forward. “When I first came here and other immigrants came here from wherever it was they came from, they all started looking to see where they can get halal meat, but at that time you could not find it anywhere.”

• Read more: A sweet sweet story

The short-term solution for Muslims like Abdulrehman was to eat kosher products since both kosher and halal foods are pork-free, and they are slaughtered under similar conditions. But for the one-time salesman who fled political turmoil on Zanzibar with only the $20 he had sewn into his belt, the long-term solution was clear — he would open Winnipeg’s first halal store, even if it meant harvesting the animals in accordance with Islamic requirements himself.

More than three decades later, Abdulrehman still slaughters most of the meat sold in his store, but he is also able to purchase halal chickens from a local supplier and he notes that mainstream food companies now produce halal products as well.

Maple Leaf Foods launched Mina Halal, a line of hand-slaughtered chicken, in 2012. It was soon followed in 2013 by six value-added halal chicken products including nuggets. Sargent Farms in Ontario and Dunn-Rite in Manitoba also provide halal poultry, as do other small processors across the country. Cargill’s Dunlop facility in Ontario specializes in halal beef and SunGold Meats in Alberta specializes in halal lamb and goat. Other Canadian companies even sell halal bison and elk.

According to the 2011 National Household Survey, there are more than one million Canadian Muslims, up from about 580,000 Muslims in 2001, making it the fastest-growing religion in Canada and for producers, processors and marketers, halal consumers represent a growing and largely untapped demographic.

Despite increased availability of halal food in Canada, a 2014 survey found 70 per cent of halal households felt food companies were failing to meet their needs, while an additional 61 per cent of respondents felt major grocery chains fell short of expectations.

“There is definitely a lot of room for improvement,” says Salima Jivraj, managing director of halal at Nourish Food Marketing, which commissioned the survey. “Most of the 900 people we interviewed were from urban centres — from Toronto and the GTA — so if they feel they are being underserved then I can only imagine that Muslim Canadians in smaller centres, small communities are also underserved, probably more so than the people we spoke with.”

The difference between Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal and places like Corner Brook or Moose Jaw is clear to consumers like Shireen Ahmed. Today the sports writer and activist lives in Toronto, but she was born in Halifax and still treks out to the family cottage on Prince Edward Island each summer, which means stocking up before she hits the road.

“Here (in Toronto) we have incredible butcher stores where I can get everything from filet mignon, to chopped sirloin, to ribs, to Pakistani tandoori chicken, to wings, so you name it, here I can get it, and that is pretty awesome,” says Ahmed. “But if I drive out to P.E.I., I will take a cooler full of those kinds of foods, halal hotdogs, marshmallows, halal gummy candy, everything you can’t get there.”

While some stores on the East Coast do carry halal products, the mother of four says the selection is scant and prices are high. In some areas, there’s an alternative, of course, but it isn’t always convenient either.

“Basically, you go to a farm in rural Nova Scotia or wherever and you literally order a whole cow and that cow is chopped up and put in your freezer. That’s how a lot of people do it in those areas, compared to, say, in Mississauga,” explains Ahmed.

One place you might look is Oulton Farm, about halfway between Halifax and Wolfville, one of the few provincially inspected abattoirs offering halal slaughter on the East Coast.

Until about six years ago, Oulton’s was the only inspected halal provider in Nova Scotia. “We probably do about 500 or 600 goats each year, and that is limited by supply, basically,” says Wayne Oulton, whose parents founded the meat shop and first ventured into the halal market in the 1970s. “And we do about 2,000 lamb as well.”

“For local farmers, it’s great,” Oulton says, explaining the province lost its federal slaughter capacity, leaving producers reliant on provincial plants and local customers. “So I think as a local farmer, if we can sell it to a local business, that’s a better home for our animals that hopefully brings more dollars to everybody.”

Thousands of kilometres west, near around Innisfail, Alta., one processor has turned to halal processing to diversify its consumer base and drive its business, only on a much larger scale. Since opening its doors in 1974, SunGold Specialty Meats has undergone many re-imaginings, but today the federally inspected lamb and goat processing plant is entirely halal, even though no one in the company’s ownership group is Muslim.

“We are actually owned by livestock producers, by farmers, so our ownership is a group of Alberta livestock producers,” says SunGold’s general manager, Miles Kliner, explaining how halal was identified as an underserved market during a long-range business planning exercise.

“We were looking at how to grow our business, asking how were we going to strengthen our business and researching the food service and retail landscape… consumers’ requirements, consumers’ taste, consumers’ interests,” says Kliner. “So in a nutshell, when you do all that research you put together that information… one thing that was very apparent, is that the ethnicity of the population of our country is changing and growing, and there is an opportunity to serve that market.”

The next steps were to research halal certification agencies, form a partnership with one, and begin the move towards meeting Islamic slaughter requirements, a process SunGold completed in 2006.

For most halal consumers, the term means that a healthy animal has been slaughtered by a Muslim, killed with a swift neck incision as the butcher thanks God for the animal. Pork is also forbidden under Islamic dietary law.

“The word halal means permissible,” says Abdulrehman, “which means you make sure the knife is sharp and that when you do the slaughter, you do the job as quick as you can so you do not torture that animal. At the same time, what you are doing, is you are thanking your lord for allowing you take a life from another living creature for your own sustaining.”

Dhabihah (or Zabiha) is the term most often used to describe the ritual slaughter that makes meat halal, and Kliner says there isn’t a day that goes by when the SunGold website doesn’t receive a question or comment from consumers, some of which are about halal processing, wondering about how it all works and if it’s humane. The general manager assures customers it is, explaining how ancient techniques and modern practices are combined to ensure animal welfare requirements are met or exceeded.

“Done properly, they don’t feel any pain, this is a must for us,” says Kliner, explaining animals are restrained and stunned prior to harvest. “I’ve had consumers call up and they are really irate with me on the phone, almost to the point where I can’t get a word in edgewise… but when they calm down and actually hear me describe the process… they come away with the feeling that they were really glad they called.”

Back in Toronto, Jivraj agrees there is no reason halal isn’t compatible with modern meat processing methods. The editor of Halal Foodie recently returned from Alberta where she spoke to producers about the business possibilities halal offers the cattle industry.

“With beef there is the issue of captive bolt stunning,” she says. “And that was one of the main questions I got in Alberta, how do we work around that? And from my conversations with the certifiers, they say it’s just a matter of us working with them to find a solution.”

It’s not that captive bolts aren’t allowed, she adds, it’s that for the meat to be halal, the ritual slaughter must occur after the bolt is applied, but before animal is dead.

“It’s a matter of timing,” Jivraj says.

However, some questions about halal slaughter have less to do with concerns about animal welfare and more to do with anti-Muslim sentiments and far-right ideology. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds of online searching to come across racist or ignorant diatribes, posted under the guise of providing information about halal slaughter.

Some of the calls Kliner receives have reflected that xenophobic sentiment.

“Honestly, in today’s day and age with all we see and hear in the media, that’s not good,” says Kliner. “It’s important for us to be able to tell the story with the facts and ensure that people aren’t just running off in some direction making assumptions.”

Kathy Twardek, director of consumer protection and market fairness for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, notes that all products produced in federally inspected facilities must meet the same health and animal welfare requirements, whether they are halal or not.

The agency also implemented labelling requirements last spring, requiring halal product labels to be accompanied by the name of the organization that certified the product as halal.

“(The regulations) were put in place to respond to the need for a more consistent approach to the labelling of halal products,” says Twardek. “There are different interpretations of halal and different certifiers follow different processes… so by providing the certification body, consumers are able to decide if the type of halal they are looking at is what they are looking for.”

The move has garnered a mixed reaction from consumers, with many feeling there isn’t enough oversight of the certifiers.

“It’s a great first step… but because there is no accreditation, anyone can be a certifier,” says Jivraj. “If I have a product, I could actually open up a side certification business and then certify myself because there is no one governing that.”

What she’d like to see is a national accreditation agency pulled together by the religious community, but with the additional authority of government backing. Still, there’s another issue that is gaining even more priority.

“For some reason, the main focus right now is chicken: is it slaughtered by hand or is it slaughtered by machine?” Twardek says. “The traditional method is slaughtered by hand and it is preferred, but a lot of people also accept machine slaughtered, so that is really where the variance is occurring, but it is just a matter of what your certifier tells you.”

At Waldner’s Meats in Niverville, Man., the value that customers place on hand-slaughtered birds has been long apparent. The small, provincially inspected processor slaughters about 42,000 each year, supplying stores such as the one owned by Abdulrehman.

Angela Chipilsky says they bring in a halal harvester every time they process poultry. “He comes out when we process our birds and he hand cuts and blesses every one,” she says, adding the hand processing seems especially important to their older generation of clients.

Other trends are also emerging in the halal market. While earlier generations were generally only concerned about whether a product was permissible, Jivraj says Canadian-born Muslims are often searching for additional qualities, such as food that is organic or locally produced.

“Especially with the millennial generation that is coming up now, they are the ones that are born here and they don’t have the same struggles as their parents did, so they are not looking for fast and easy, they are starting to look at quality,” Jivraj says. They also lack the sentimentality about the brands and products from their homeland, making tiny shops like Abdulrehman’s less alluring to second-generation Muslim Canadians.

But back in his Winnipeg store, Abdulrehman isn’t concerned about declining customers or competition from the big retailers. That’s because stores like his are benefiting from yet another cultural shift.

“The customers have changed, they have diversified. Now I am not only catering to the Muslim community, I am catering to the general public as well. I have more clients now that are not of the Islamic faith,” he explains.

Some come for goods like carbonated yogurt drinks and spices, but they also buy halal meat. Even at chain retailers, more non-Muslims are buying halal products.

A report published in Canadian Grocer Magazine notes that while 11 per cent of all meat sold in the United Kingdom is halal, Muslims only account for three per cent of the population.

Canadian Grocer Magazine went on to say, “the concept of halal has extended far beyond a religious choice, also attracting consumers who are environmentally conscious (and) health conscious.”

Jivraj, who also founded Canada’s first Halal Food Festival four years ago, is optimistic. “I think it is only going up because the population is increasing,” she says. “We have one million Muslims right now in Canada, and that number is expected to triple in 20 years. It is growing 13 per cent annually, and the the higher the population, the more the demand, the more the growth.”

But while Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada puts the value of the Canadian halal market at an estimated $1 billion, a 2014 report by Thomson Reuters estimates the value of of the global halal market will reach US$1.6 trillion by 2018. It offers Canadian producers and processors a whole new set of opportunities, says Jivraj.

“Canada will be in a really, really good position to be exporting,” Jivraj says. “Canada as a whole is seen by other countries, like China or in the Middle East, as this pure country with this vast open land base and grazing cattle. We have this image so our meat is seen as premium, but we are not pushing it much in the halal category.”

Ron Davidson of the Canadian Meat Council suggests this could be because different countries have different halal requirements, meaning a halal processor on the Prairies might be able to export to the United Arab Emirates for example, but not to Indonesia or Malaysia, where the market is considerably larger.

“Companies are trying to adjust to that and we are certainly interested in the halal market — there is quite a bit of meat going to these countries and there is quite a bit of room for growth,” Davidson says. “So we are trying to satisfy the requirements for different countries and that is a challenge for the plants.”

Smaller operations like SunGold have made inroads into the Middle East, as well as into Hong Kong. And in 2014 another Alberta-based meat processor, Prairie Halal Foods, opened its first office in Dubai.

“In Dubai, where there is a lot of New Zealand lamb consumed, we service the high-end restaurants at hotels and resorts,” says Kliner, noting SunGold exports are premium, grain-finished products.

Halal beef from Canada also makes it into overseas markets, with about half a dozen smaller, federally inspected plants processing it in Alberta and Ontario. But Duane Ellard of Canada Beef says the market isn’t often a priority because halal beef production is associated with an increased production cost.

“When you incorporate another process in the harvesting process, it comes down to a financial consideration,” Ellard says. “So there is an extra person that has to be in attendance, there has to be a certification, there needs to be a program in place, records have be kept, from a harvesting perspective, there is quite a bit of regulation.”

Still, consumption in Canada has grown three per cent in the last five years, and the organization does promote Canadian halal harvest in the Middle East, North Africa and the European Union.

For those who do seek halal certification, market opportunities in Canada and abroad seem ripe. But will Canadian processors take advantage of it?

“Canada sits at a really great place just because of our agricultural ability,” Jivraj says. “We are also maturing as a community ourselves and many of us are second-generation, third-generation Canadian and our demands are that we want to be more and more like our peers. We want products that are mainstream… there is only growth ahead.”

The post The halal market appeared first on Country Guide.

Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay and Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday announced Taiwan will again accept beef from Canadian cattle under 30 months of age (UTMs), effective immediately.

Taiwan had pulled the plug on imports of Canadian UTM beef in February last year, following the discovery of Canada’s 19th domestic case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in an Alberta cow.

Taiwan had previously admitted Canadian UTM beef since 2007, when it lifted the restrictions it imposed following the discovery of Canada’s first domestic BSE case in 2003.

Case 19 was unusual in that it was Canada’s first and so far only BSE case to be born after Ottawa imposed an “enhanced feed ban” in 2007. China and South Korea were also among the countries to re-impose beef bans after Case 19’s discovery, but both have since lifted those restrictions.

Admission of Canadian beef products from animals over 30 months of age (OTMs) into Taiwan will “require further discussions” between the countries’ regulators, the Canadian Meat Council said Friday.

“Prior to the initial identification in 2003 of BSE in Canada, exports of beef products to Taiwan exceeded $15 million per year,” CMC executive director Jim Laws said in a release.

“We look forward to regaining our market share during the coming years so that Taiwan will once again become one of the Canadian meat industry’s top 10 export destinations.”

According to the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Canadian beef exporters see shipments reaching the $10 million per year range in the short term, and as much as $15 million per year within five years.

According to market development agency Canada Beef, Taiwan in 2014 took 1,776 tonnes of Canadian beef, worth about $13 million, making it Canada’s seventh-biggest beef export market that year. Taiwan imports about 95 per cent of its beef, the agency noted.

“Achieving this access will further enable the work Canada Beef is doing to increase the brand, value and the resulting loyalty for Canadian beef not only in Taiwan, but leveraging this into Southeast Asia,” Canada Beef president Rob Meijer said Friday.

The restored access will likely lead to “initial modest exports” to Taiwan, the agency said, but “importantly sends a message to other world markets affirming the quality and safety of Canadian beef.”

From the producer perspective, CCA president Dan Darling described Taiwan’s decision, and Mexico’s recent decision to restore full access for Canadian beef, as significant in that they mark the removal of some of the few remaining BSE trade restrictions in the world.

Such developments will in turn help instill confidence in Canadian beef producers to grow their herds, Darling said. “All of these market expansions are important; every gain in market access supports competition for Canadian beef.”

During the latest “market disruption,” Canada Beef said, it kept a strong presence in the market through its office in Taipei, “maintaining relationships with key partners and supporting market development initiatives in emerging markets such as Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines.”

Meanwhile, Meijer said, Canada Beef plans to focus its marketing and brand work in Taiwan on “high-end steakhouses, foodservice and hotel restaurants. With regained access, we have the ability to deliver supplies of Canadian beef to our target customers and further increase brand loyalty, demand and overall value for our product.”

The “most significant” remaining BSE-related market restriction for Canadian beef is China’s ban on bone-in UTM beef, the CCA said, noting the association and the federal government “are continuing to work on” that access. — AGCanada.com Network

The post Taiwan again accepting Canadian UTM beef appeared first on Country Guide.

For nearly three decades, Manitoba has had a front row seat on the peaks and valleys of Canada’s hog industry. They’ve seen it all: the boom of the ’90s, the fallout from H1N1, the decade-long moratorium against barn building, a strong dollar, a weak dollar, porcine epidemic diarrhea, a disappearing labour force.

The question now is, what’s next?

Clearly, evolutionary pressures are intense, and George Matheson, who farms near the town of Stonewall with a capacity to produce at most 1,200 hogs a year, knows he’s no longer a typical farmer.

Today, though, Matheson is chair of Manitoba Pork. “I may well be one of the smallest, if not the smallest, producer in the province,” he says.

The 59-year-old got into pigs in 1982, and since then he has watched most independent pork producers leave the business, and he has also watched the size of the remaining farms expand.

The numbers tell the story. Today, only about 220 levy-paying hog farmers remain active in Manitoba, and only 500 total farms have pigs on them.

The province produces roughly eight million pigs each year (it peaked at 9.45 million in 2007), so that means the remaining producers are putting out about 16,000 pigs per farm.

“There are fewer producers, but more production,” Matheson says. “And of course we have the two largest producers in Canada with Maple Leaf and HyLife being here as well.”

The reasons why so many hog producers have left the industry can be complex and intermingled, but trade disputes, environmental restrictions and market pressures have each played a role, among others.

• Read more: Ending the moratorium on new hog barns?

Plus, pork is also vulnerable to the same stresses as other farm sectors, including succession pressures. “A lot of people have just plain retired,” Matheson says. Committing to year-round livestock production isn’t always attractive to a younger generation, especially in the face of worn out infrastructure and uncertain profitability.

In fact, it’s maybe even a bit worse in pork. In recent years grain farming has been more lucrative, Matheson explains, and crop farming can come with the added benefit of some downtime over the winter months.

It points to what’s different for pork this time, says Perry Mohr, general manager of h@ms Marketing Services, which markets pigs for 144 pork producers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The drop in the number of hog farms has been even faster than general farm consolidation, Mohr points out.

“During the 10 years previous to this, there wasn’t a lot of money to be made,” says Mohr. “So a lot of these guys that maybe weren’t quite as efficient or their banks weren’t quite as patient with them throughout those years, a lot the them were basically forced out of the industry.”

“Their barns were old, the capital investment was too big for them, they were at an age when they didn’t want to reinvest, and they had no son that wanted to take over, so they shut the down,” he says.

The survivors

There’s another key too. The farms that stayed with pigs tend to be mixed farms, Mohr says. “The most sustainable mode, given the factors that impact hog prices, is the farrow-to-finish hog producer who produces his own feed,” he says.

Matheson’s compact farm — complete with tree-lined drive and white-trimmed Victorian home — isn’t farrow-to-finish, but does utilize 360 acres of cropland to feed its herd. The land also allows for efficient distribution of manure as fertilizer, in addition to acting as a buffer against high feed costs and market flux.

On a different scale, Starlite Hutterite Colony made the decision to “to try walking (their) grain off the farm instead of hauling it” following the end of government freight subsidies in the 1990s and hasn’t looked back since, says James Hofer, who manages the colony’s 600-sow farrow-to-finish operation. “When you have your own grain, that becomes a natural hedge. You’ve got your inputs locked in, they’re in the bin and you can weather the storm.”

But even with its feed, Starlite is evolving beyond traditional western crops like wheat and barley. “We’ve been growing soybeans at Starlite since there were varieties that could be grown in Manitoba,” Hofer explains. “After a couple years, we said, hey, this is something that is going to be long-term, and we set up our own soymeal processing plant, so that is how we feel we’ve been able to stay in the game and drive costs out of production.”

But all the grain in the world can’t save Starlite from the one universal problem plaguing pork producers and processors across the province — labour shortages. Finding employees willing and able to work in processing plants and pig barns continues to be problematic, with many operations turning to temporary foreign workers.

“We don’t actually have a lineup of people,” Hofer says. “In fact there are colonies that are shutting down their operations because they don’t have people who want to work in a hog barn.”

Other colonies are bringing in people from outside their communities to fill the gaps, and in the city of Brandon, Maple Leaf Foods has used the temporary foreign worker program to bring in about 1,000 employees, with 800 becoming permanent residents.

At HyLife’s Neepawa processing plant, about half of its 1,000 employees were brought in as temporary foreign workers.

However, changes introduced by the federal Conservatives in 2014 have made bringing in foreign employees more challenging. The new Liberal government has promised to review the changes, but unless a major policy shift occurs, further restrictions will come into effect July 1.

Given comments from MaryAnn Mihychuk, the Trudeau government’s employment minister, an open door seems unlikely. Responding to Canadian Meat Council claims that processing plants are short nearly 1,000 meat cutters, Mihychuk told the Canadian Press in January that “in the present circumstance, where we are seeing such economic hard times across the Prairies, it would be a very unusual circumstance where we had to resort to temporary foreign workers to fill a position.”

Mihychuk said the solution is better training and recruiting, not foreign workers.

It’s a suggestion that doesn’t sit well with the Manitoba Pork Council’s general manager, Andrew Dickson, who doesn’t buy the idea that unemployed oil and gas workers will gravitate to Manitoba’s hog industry.

“You will find some guys wander back to Manitoba who were out in the oil patch, but those are the ones who came from Manitoba,” says Dickson. “I mean, some of these people are very skilled trades people… are they going to stay with the hog industry, even if they come? As soon as the oil industry turns around, they are gone.”

The search for a new model

If it seems like Manitoba’s pork industry has just gone from one crisis to another — be it new disease, a strong dollar, country-of-origin labelling, capital shortages, consumer backlash, labour constraints or spiking feed costs — it’s because it has, says Mohr. But finding a model of hog production less prone to fluctuations won’t be easy.

At one time Manitoba hog farmers sold pigs through the Manitoba Hog Marketing Commission, which became the Manitoba Hog Marketing Board in 1972. The board’s monopoly on the sale of slaughter hogs ended in July of 1996, allowing producers to choose direct marketing, broker services or what is now known as h@ms Marketing Services.

Now, Dickson would like to see the federal and provincial governments get behind a proposed Hog Stabilization Program to help buffer some of those market forces.

Manitoba generated just over 57 per cent of Canadian pork exports in 2015. “So when you produce a commodity that is reliant on an export market, you are subjected to commodity prices which go up and down based on supply and demand,” Mohr says. “You are subjected to all kinds of forces, most of them beyond your control.”

Now, the pork sector is aiming for a new program to help producers access working capital. “What we’re looking at is trying to provide some protection for working capital for producers,” Mohr says, adding pig farmers across the country have similar cash-flow problems.

So far, the plan hasn’t attracted government approval.

And the need for more pigs

The idea of a price stabilization program began percolating in 2012. Feed corn prices were skyrocketing just as the industry struggled to recover from a 2009 collapse caused by the double-whammy of H1N1 concerns and country-of-origin labelling or COOL. And although feed prices have dropped since then and COOL has also been repealed, farmers are now faced with incoming animal care regulations that are requiring expensive barn retrofits.

Maple Leaf has committed to switching all its barns to free open housing by 2017, while Quebec-based producer Olymel — which relies on hogs from Western Canada — has committed to phasing out sow stalls by 2022.

All hog producers will need to use open sow housing systems by July 2024, in line with the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs that was introduced in the spring of 2014.

However, there’s a possible silver lining in the growth of premium products and niche markets.

“Now the processors are trying to differentiate their products and that has me as excited about the future as anything,” says Mohr. “We’re going to antibiotic-free for one thing.”

“I’m not going to stand here and say the pork is better, but what I will say is that there is a demand for it,” Mohr quickly adds. “We’re starting to produce what the consumer is asking for — and the key part of that is that the consumer is willing to pay more for it.”

While he doesn’t have a crystal ball, Mohr does have a few predictions to make as he prepares to leave his position and head into retirement.

“Honestly, and I can say this because I’m on my way out, I would say that the decrease in the number of farmers will abate itself. We’re pretty much at the bottom,” he says.

Matheson agrees. “We just have to continue to do the right thing,” he adds. “We’re under a great deal of pressure from society right now. On animal care, environmental sustainability and food safety, they watch us more closely than they have ever done before, but as long as we continue to do the right thing, I don’t think there will be any risks in expanding, quickly or otherwise.”

Dickson would like to see more barn proposals come forward throughout the year in order to expand capacity and build the sector’s efficiency, and he noted Suncrest Colony has just completed building a new hog barn in the Rural Municipality of Hanover, using an existing permit.

“We’re not expecting a flood of these, but we’re hoping we’ll see a steady number of barns as we go through the next five or 10 years,” he says.

“We had a good year as an industry as a whole in 2015… we produce a great product and people still consume it,” Dickson says.

“I think the future will be reasonably bright, but we will be cautious in this part of the world and we will continue building on the good things that we’ve done in the past.”

Big farms, big net incomes

A weak Canadian dollar has added a 30 per cent bonus to hog prices, says Perry Mohr, general manager at h@ms Marketing Services, who notes that Canadian hogs are still pegged to American dollars.

It’s a development that could drive industry expansion.

“If you look at when the hog industry really expanded the last time, it was when we had a really weak dollar,” Mohr says. “If the dollar was weak for 10 years, it would really boost the industry.”

Mohr also believes 2016 will be a profitable year, even if hog prices drop a bit in the fourth quarter as American producers begin to recover from the devastating porcine epidemic diarrhea virus that killed millions of pigs in that country. Next year is also setting up to be a profitable one, with at least four new packing plants opening in the U.S., driving up demand for hogs.

“This year, 2016, the U.S. producers are predicted to make a small profit, let’s say it’s $5 a hog. Most of our guys this year will make around $25 a hog, based on what we know today,” says Mohr. “Last year U.S. hog producers made about $8 per hog… our guys made about $30 a hog.”

According to Janet Honey at the University of Manitoba’s department of agribusiness and agricultural economics, net market income for Manitoba pork producers jumped from $115,500 in 2011 to $808,300 in 2014, before dipping to lower estimates for 2015. In a report prepared for the university, Honey indicated the average net operating income per pig farm was over $735,200 in 2014, up from $303,000 in 2013.

Mohr notes that low oil prices have also played an important role in increasing profitability in the hog sector, lowering some production costs and lessening efforts to divert grain to fuel production, while also devaluing the Canadian dollar.

“As far as profitability, it has been difficult over the last eight years or so — with the exception of 2014 and part of 2013 and 2015 — but I think that for mixed farms such as the Hutterite colonies and myself that produce grain as well, it has proven to be a pretty good system to, as the old saying goes, not have all the eggs in one basket,” says Manitoba Pork chair George Matheson. As for future growth, he says it will take careful collaboration between producers, processors, government and consumers.

The post Where have all the hog farmers gone? appeared first on Country Guide.

Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay and Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday announced Ukraine has, essentially, approved beef and pork exports from any Canadian federally-registered establishment that meets certification requirements, bringing the total number of eligible meat plants to 27.

Among the meat plants approved effective Dec. 22, 2015 are Cargill’s beef plants at High River, Alta. and Guelph, Ont., the JBS beef packing plant at Brooks, Alta. and the Maple Leaf pork plants at Brandon, Man. and Lethbridge, Alta.

Canadian Meat Council president Joe Reda said in the government’s release he’s “pleased that export approval has been received for all 15 Canadian meat packing and processing establishments that were visited by the Ukrainian audit team” in September.

Canada’s meat industry, he said, “appreciates and values highly the continuing efforts of the Canadian government to obtain export approval for the additional companies that are interested in the Ukrainian market.”

The government’s announcement comes as Canadian and Ukrainian officials put the negotiated text of their free trade agreement, on which they concluded talks in July, through legal review.

The Canada/Ukraine free trade deal calls for elimination of “the vast majority” of Ukraine’s tariffs on Canadian agricultural and agri-food imports, including beef and fresh chilled pork, and a “large” tariff rate quota (TRQ) for frozen pork, under which pork may also enter Ukraine duty-free.

According to the CMC in July, the deal, once fully implemented by the two governments, is to provide duty-free access to Ukraine for “unlimited” beef and veal, duty-free access for 20,000 tonnes of frozen pork, and duty-free access for unlimited fresh chilled pork.

In 2014, by comparison, Canada’s meat exports to Ukraine included 25 tonnes of beef and veal products, valued at $47,000, and 2,031 tonnes of pork, valued at $4.4 million, the CMC said.

From all exporting nations, Ukraine’s imports of beef products in 2014 were valued at $17.1 million and pork products at $193.6 million, the government said Monday. — AGCanada.com Network

The post Packers approved to move beef, pork to Ukraine appeared first on Country Guide.