Reading Time: 2 minutes Two more hog operations in Quebec’s Monteregie — a nursery operation and a finishing barn — have been confirmed infected with porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED). Quebec’s provincial swine health team (EQSP) announced Wednesday that the two new cases — both in the St-Denis-sur-Richelieu area, about 25 km northwest of St-Hyacinthe — are “epidemiologically linked” to […] Read more
Two more Que. hog operations confirmed with PED
Hog nursery barn Quebec’s third PED case
Reading Time: < 1 minute A hog nursery operation in Quebec’s Monteregie was confirmed Dec. 31 as the province’s third case of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) in hogs. Quebec has previously booked two cases of on-farm outbreaks of the PED virus (PEDv) — both at hog finishing operations in the Monteregie in February and November 2014 respectively. The latest case […] Read more
Que. complying with, appealing AIT ruling on edible oil products
Reading Time: 2 minutes Quebec has amended its rules on sales of vegetable oil-based dairy products, but is still appealing the ruling that led to the amendments, the Saskatchewan government reports. Amendments to Quebec’s Food Products Act last week have loosened laws that have effectively banned sales in Quebec of edible oil dairy substitutes, such as some margarines and […] Read more
Shuttered Que. beef plant’s equipment sold
Reading Time: 2 minutes The chance of a rescue for Quebec’s Levinoff-Colbex cull cow packing plant has passed, now that the facility’s equipment has been sold off piecemeal at auction. Provincial investment financing agency Investissement Quebec and other creditors still own the Colbex building and land at St-Cyrille-de-Wendover, in the Centre-du-Quebec region. But the plant’s receivers sold its equipment to a consortium of […] Read more
Quebec turns up second case of PEDv in hogs
Reading Time: 2 minutes Quebec has confirmed its second instance of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) in hogs, this time at a feeding operation in the Monteregie district. Biosecurity measures have been ramped up “promptly” at the unnamed farm to avoid the spread of the PED virus (PEDv) to other hog operations, the provincial ag ministry said in a release […] Read more
Lookout Holsteins and Jerseys ‘start from scratch’
Like a growing number of Canadian operations, Quebec’s Lookout finds success by heading in a direction all it’s own
Reading Time: 6 minutes Wrong turns are part of steering any business to success, as are some unexpectedly bumpy roads. There is no such thing as a perfect roadmap, with the upshot that many young farmers suffer indecision along the way, and some even abandon their course at times. All the same, the story of Lookout Holsteins and Jerseys […] Read more
Harvesting on turf
Quebec farmers have solved the corn cover crop puzzle. They grow grass under the canopy
Reading Time: 4 minutes When Raymond Durivage drives his Lexion 585R combine into a cornfield, he knows he’s in for a smooth, worry-free ride. The two front tracks ensure excellent flotation. But that’s not all. The combine is also rolling on turf, with a thick green mattress of ryegrass between each corn row that provides for less compaction and […] Read more
Corn losing the acreage battle
Across the east, farmers like Elliot Lowry are dropping corn from their 2014 plans
Reading Time: 5 minutes Be prepared to see noticeably less corn in Canada’s cornbelt next year as farmers in southern Ontario and Quebec continue to switch acres to soybeans. The 2011 federal Census of Agriculture documented a 33 per cent jump since 2006 in the number of acres farmers are planting to soybeans, and it isn’t at all hard […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
