Reading Time: 3 minutes Ottawa – If polls and pundits are to be believed, Monday’s federal election will result in a minority government — meaning no single party would alone be dictating the immediate future of agricultural policy in Canada. While the true results won’t be known until Monday night, most pollsters are speculating either a Conservative or Liberal-led […] Read more
Future of ag policy remains unclear ahead of election
Alberta proposes heavier penalties for on-farm trespassing
Reading Time: 3 minutes Alberta’s government proposes to discourage future on-farm protests — events in the style of an occupation held early last month at an Alberta Hutterite colony’s turkey farm — on pain of new penalties. Speaking Thursday at the Jumbo Valley colony near Fort Macleod, Premier Jason Kenney, Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer and Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen […] Read more
Dairy payments to be based on quota at Aug. 31
Reading Time: 3 minutes Canadian dairy farmers’ piece of the first year of a federal free trade compensation package is going to be based on quota they held at the end of last month. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on Sept. 6 announced more details for what’s been dubbed the Dairy Direct Payment Program, though a registration period hasn’t yet […] Read more
Dairy farmers to get direct cash payment as trade compensation
Reading Time: 2 minutes Canadian dairy farmers will be getting direct cash compensation after the government gave up dairy market access to other countries in recent trade deals. The compensation follows promises by the Trudeau government — and the Harper government before it — that dairy farmers would be compensated in some form for the loss of market. Why […] Read more
Supply-managed sector compensation details due before election
Reading Time: 3 minutes Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau has pledged to lay out details on trade pact compensation for supply-managed sectors before the federal election in October. The pledge comes as the federal Liberals face pressure from supply-managed sectors and the federal opposition Conservatives to deliver on compensation for access granted to the Canadian market under Canada’s free […] Read more
Canada promises farm aid amid China canola spat
Reading Time: 3 minutes Ottawa/Winnipeg | Reuters — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday said Ottawa would soon announce help for canola farmers hurt by a China ban on imports of the oilseed but brushed off calls to pull funding for a Chinese-led investment bank. China and Canada are locked in a diplomatic and trade dispute that has […] Read more
Zimbabwe to start paying white farmers compensation after April
Reading Time: 2 minutes Harare | Reuters — Zimbabwe is to start paying compensation this year to thousands of white farmers who lost land under former president Robert Mugabe’s land reform nearly two decades ago, the government said, as it seeks to bring closure to a highly divisive issue. Two decades ago Mugabe’s government carried out at times violent […] Read more
French rapeseed farmers destroy 18,000 hectares over GMO risk
Reading Time: 2 minutes Paris | Reuters — French farmers destroyed a total of 18,000 hectares of rapeseed, more than double the area initially expected, following the discovery of a non-authorized genetically modified organism (GMO) in seeds, German group Bayer said on Friday. Bayer had announced in February that farmers in France and Germany were turning over thousands of […] Read more
Piles of pigs: Swine fever outbreaks go unreported in rural China
Reading Time: 6 minutes Baoding, China | Reuters — When pigs on the Xinda Husbandry breeding farm in northern China began dying in growing numbers in early January, it looked increasingly likely that the farm had been struck by the much feared African swine fever, an incurable disease that has spread rapidly across the country since last year. But […] Read more
Dairy farmers unhappy after meeting Trudeau on USMCA
Reading Time: 2 minutes Ottawa | Reuters — Canadian dairy farmers met Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday to discuss his politically-risky move to open up the protected domestic market to U.S. industry but complained he had not given them details about compensation. As part of the talks to complete the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal, Canada […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
