Seventy-six percent of producers said extreme weather had an impact on their operations over the past five years, with 34 per cent saying they were significantly impacted.

In Nova Scotia, the last decade has seen an increased number of hurricanes, late frosts, drought, drier springs, wetter falls and a polar vortex. The impact can be seen across all types of agriculture and producers find themselves pivoting to meet the challenges head on.

Lisa Jenereaux, co-owner of Spurr Brothers Farms in the Annapolis Valley, says they’ve seen the gamut when it comes to weather and admits it’s been challenging.

As a fifth-generation fruit farmer, her family has grown apples and potatoes in the region for decades.

“Our farm has always been diversified,” she says. “If you have a lot of different stuff, then if you have a bad year in one thing, you can hopefully make it up with something else. It kind of levels off.”

She says that hasn’t been the case for the last five years.

“We’ve had losses. They’re more significant, and they’re affecting many crops.”

While the federal government offers some support to farmers, Jenereaux says the programs aren’t suited to most Nova Scotia growers, who are almost penalized for being diversified.

She says insurance helps but you can’t go back to that well repeatedly without repercussions, such as increased rates.

They knew they had to do something different.

• RELATED: Outdoor weather affects indoor crops, too

Go big or do something different

Spurr Brothers used to farm over 200 acres of potatoes, and they considered expanding.

“You either have to be niche, or big. We had to decide where to put our focus,” says Jenereaux.

When they looked at the cost to “go big,” Jenereaux and her partners (brother, William Spurr, and cousin, Katie Campbell) decided to look for something outside of agriculture.

They opened a farm market and began to make and sell hard cider.

The market was a relatively easy pivot, she explains. They already had a small farm market where they sold apples and other vegetables, and Spurr had been making cider as a hobby for several years. They built a new building, added a greenhouse, created public spaces and made it an attractive destination for families.

Jenereaux says it’s worked out better than expected in some ways. Not only have they created a hub for the community with family-focused weekend events, but if the strawberry crop ripens too quickly due to a heat wave, they can pick and freeze them for use in cider later. Before that option existed, the crop would have been lost.

She says they focus on ways to mitigate the worst of the impacts caused by weather.

For example, it’s important to manage the amount of water around fruit trees, because the root stock can’t tolerate sitting in water. “In fruit trees, we always do tile drainage. We’ve had more and more weather events with massive rainfall, and floods are more of an issue,” says Jenereaux.

To combat wind, which could easily flatten a modern orchard, all new plantings use a trellis system.

“We put the posts closer together, and every post is in the ground as deep as possible, no exceptions. If the post won’t go in, we’re getting the backhoe and digging that post in. We’re using more wires. There’s no room for error.”

Another change over the last few years is that now all the orchards are irrigated.

“It’s been getting a lot hotter a lot earlier,” she explains. “Spring used to be our wet time, but we’re seeing a lot of dry spells in May and June.”

In the past she wouldn’t turn on irrigation until July, maybe late June. “Now there are times in late-May when I’m thinking ‘I better get this irrigation going.”

She says water is always top of mind now when they plant a new field or orchard.

“You might have chanced it before, we’d have a couple of weeks of dry weather and then you’re going to get rain,” she says. “But now, you could go for four weeks without any significant rainfall. So, when we’re planting that’s our highest priority. Do we have a pond big enough, do we have a water source large enough? It’s not just supplemental anymore, you might have to water your crop for the entire season, and that’s a big shift.”

On the flip side is the cold. Late spring frosts can kill a berry crop or reduce the apple yield. While not much can cost-effectively be done in the orchards, Jenereaux says they use fabric covers and overhead irrigation on the strawberry fields to mitigate damage.

Long-term pasture management pays off

Jenereaux isn’t the only producer noticing issues with water. On Nova Scotia’s Northumberland shore, John Duynisveld, and his daughter Maria, of Holdanca Farms also worry about water.

Holdanca Farms is the 2024 recipient of The Environmental Stewardship Award (TESA) from Canadian Cattles Association. Duynisveld says his father started managing the farm with a focus on the environment in 1988 when he implemented rotational grazing.

And, while weather has always been a variable, he’s noticed how it’s changed in the last few years.

“We get extremes of dry or wet weather. In 2020 our rainfall levels were 25 per cent less than normal,” he says. “From June to September, we had a significant drought… by our standards.”

He says the summer was so dry beef and sheep producers started feeding hay in August.

It was the first year since 1988 that he had to feed supplemental feed before January.

“We got close to normal grazing, but we had to vary paddock size based on the number of cows, how much grass was ahead and to allow grass time to recover.”

It was the opposite in 2023. The summer was very wet, and the sun never shone.

“We couldn’t make hay,” he said. “Winter feed is typically hay-bale grazing. In 2023 we didn’t hay, but we had a huge amount of leftover forage on the pastures and continued to graze until February 7, until our first major snowfall came. We still had feed left on the fields after that, and they were back on pasture the 7th of April,” says Duynisveld.

He says the decades of rotational grazing and pasture management has helped build resiliency on his land. “It helps me raise a good product and it reduces personal stress.”

The pastures support approximately 25 head of his own cattle, around 100 ewes plus lambs, and he provides custom pasturing for another 60 to 100 head of cattle for other farmers.

Additionally, he grazes about 5,000 chickens, 600 turkeys and a couple hundred laying hens. Theres’s also between 150 to 160 pastured pigs.

But the effect of changing weather is about more than enough pasture to graze.

“We’re (also) seeing changes with parasite loads. In 2023 we had more rain, less frost and more parasites were able to overwinter. There was nothing to set them back,” Duynisveld says.

Increased summer heat is something Duynisveld also takes seriously.

“The last two summers we’ve had the longest period of heat stress. In June and July, we had two to four weeks in a row, versus two, three, four days. It impacts productivity.

“We’re changing fences and pasture layouts to incorporate more shade,” he explains. “Fields that are more wet, we’re looking at ditching and planting shelter belts with controlled access. The ditches cross the fields, and a series of ponds collect the water. There’s potential to apply this strategy to over 100 acres.”

On the flip side of dry summers is a delayed winter.

“Our winters are milder, which on one hand means we can extend grazing.”

Duynisveld says in the 1990s he couldn’t put a fence post in the ground after November because it was frozen solid. This year he could put a post in anywhere until January.

“In the fall, things are growing later. Our last 10 years of moving sheep, even in mid-November we’re seeing an inch or inch-and-a-half of growth. That’s much later than before.”

But he worries about the lack of snow cover.

“We were dry from early August to late November. The water table hasn’t recovered. We have a system and it’s normally flowing steady this time of year. Right now it’s barely a trickle. This is the flip side of not having the snowpack and the spring dampness.”

His holistic approach means he’s pivoting to adapt to the challenges by letting some pastures over-mature and go a little heavy. He looks at the other species living there for validation he’s doing the right thing.

“My daughter does ‘bio-blitzes’ to identify living organisms. We have well over 1,000 species, 140 native pollinators. Small changes help us all with overall resilience to the extremes in weather.”

Some like it hot

The lack of water and heat are a boon for some producers.

Back in the Annapolis Valley, in an area known as the Gaspereau Valley, farms like Luckett Vineyards are noticing the changes in weather too.

Vineyard manager Marcel Kolb came to the area 19 years ago from Switzerland. He’s noticed a change since he arrived, but says it’s gotten more significant in the past five or six years.

“We used to talk about global warming, now we look at the extremes, we brace ourselves,” he says.

Wind, rain, heat, cold, too much, too little, or simply at the wrong time, can cost a crop.

For vineyards, warmer weather later into the fall and earlier in the spring, extends the growing season. Kolb says budding starts earlier, and the harvest can run later.

“Now we’re hoping for snow (as) it’s a water source (to) fill our reserves and ponds. This wasn’t a concern 20 years ago.”

While the lack of water is a concern, the area where Lucketts is located is on heavy loam soil. Kolb says new vineyards must install tile drainage to protect the vine roots, which extend deep, from too much water.

“Two years ago, we had 250-280 mm of rain, and we couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. In 2024 we had almost no rain for over two months. Should we have had irrigation? Maybe. It might have improved the overall yield, but it isn’t feasible yet in the vineyard.”

Planting clovers, grasses and legumes between the vines helps improve soil drainage and nutrient management through organic matter. These areas also provide habitat for beneficial insects and birds.

While the lack of snow is an issue, extreme temperature swings are more challenging and harder to manage.

“The polar vortex was a perfect storm. Two weeks earlier we had warm weather, Mother Nature had started to wake up, then the cold air hit.”

The result was devastating. Not only did producers lose the year’s crop, but whole sections of vines had to be replanted.

Late spring frosts are a worry, but producers mitigate them with a variety of tricks.

“The buds are swelling then, and a frost can cause damage,” says Kolb. “We can’t do row covers because they’re difficult in a vineyard. Some producers have installed windmills or use sprayers. We have automated propane heaters. We can’t do the whole vineyard, but we can use them in the higher-quality areas.”

Changing temperatures mean a different type of pivot for vintners.

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen a lot of new varieties, such as Chardonnays and Rieslings, which are more adaptive to the weather and are better designed for our area.”

He adds that change can benefit consumers because more choice is locally available.

“These days you can get everything from sparkling to ice wines and everything in between.”

Kolb often thinks about where they’re headed in the next 10 years.

“Change is happening, everybody can see it. It (will be) interesting to see how we can adapt. We have to make crops more resilient.”

Weather data points to climate variances

The anecdotal evidence of hotter, drier summers, more frequent heavy rain events and milder winters is backed by data collected by Environment and Climate Canada.

Ian Hubbard, a meteorologist with the department, says the weather is definitely changing.

Data from Greenwood, in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, shows that from 2001 to 2024 the humidex jumped over 42 C 10 times. Three of those events were in 2018, one in 2019 and another in 2022.

“In a typical summer we’d have a couple days where we talk about these kinds of humidex values,” Hubbard says. “We’ve seen an increase in the number of consecutive days the past few summers. That affects people, animals and vegetation.”

Ironically, 2018 and 2019 also saw rainfall significantly higher than average.

However, rainfall was less than the annual average in seven of the last 10 years. In 2023, Greenwood reported its driest summer in nearly a decade.

Hubbard says springs have been getting drier, pointing out that 2023 was exceptionally dry for the region. However, in July of that year there was significant rainfall of over 200 mm.

“That was rarer than a one-in-100-year storm,” he says. “The last comparable storm with that much rain would have been Hurricane Beth in 1971.”

What really stands out for him are the number of named storms in the Atlantic Basin. This is where hurricanes form and while many of them don’t make it this far north, the area has seen an increase in the number of storms reaching Atlantic Canada.

The hurricane season runs from June 1 to the end of November and is at its peak in September and October during prime harvest season for many crops including apples, grains and grapes.

“In a normal year, there would be 14 named storms in the basin which would strengthen to become hurricanes,” he says. “This past season there were 18. The last several years there have been at least 14.”

Hubbard says while the numbers may fluctuate from year to year, they do expect future storms to become stronger, contain more rain and more wind.

Other extreme events in the region included the arctic blast in February of 2023. The area saw temperatures plummet to -25 C when a mass of cold air sat over the region for days. The extreme cold came on the heels of a week of mild temperatures. Reports show the rapid temperature switch damaged many crops.

Overall, Hubbard says the data paints a picture of extreme weather occurring more often.

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Today, there’s even more proof that mixing with other inventive and entrepreneurial spirits is good for business, especially when you’re getting your new venture off the ground.

You’ll be good for other entrepreneurs too, and you have a network, it can even be great for your communities and for the wider ag industry as well.

“Farmers are some of the finest business people around,” says 2023 Nuffield Scholar, Shawn Moen, who has spent 15 weeks travelling to six countries exploring different collaborative agrifood models.

“When you think about business decisions, there are few business people that I would rely on to make a good practical decision more than a farmer. They know what matters at the end of the day.”

Based on research, Moen says he sees a way to make that pay even more.

“Farmers and rural people are exceptionally good at collaborating when there’s a crisis at hand,” he says. “We need to start looking at opportunity through that same collaborative lens.”

In fact, collaboration has become one of the hottest topics in business schools, no matter what industry you’re looking at, so Moen — who began life on a south Saskatchewan farm, became a respected lawyer and then left that career to launch a successful craft brewery — has travelled the world as part of his Nuffield scholars research program to check out collaborative clustering initiatives such as business incubators, designated development districts, collective retail facilities and destination marketing initiatives.

Would any have a potential fit for entrepreneurial farm ventures?

To Moen, it boiled down to which are best at fostering a new trait called co-opetition. (Moen recommends Co-opetition by Adman Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff for more detail.)

Co-opetition, he learned, works by encouraging collaboration with people you might think are your competitors,

Business builders get together to swap ideas about parts of their business that aren’t ultra senstitive. Basically, they talk about their strengths, commonalities and differences to see how they can complement each other.

Not surprisingly, the biggest challenge is the human element. Co-opetition requires trust, and farmers in particular may struggle with developing these kinds of business relationships.

“The rubber hits the road,” Moen says. “How willing are people to collaborate? That requires some concerted effort.”

But it pays. Time and again, Moen says, he found that business startups that were able to collaborate were more innovative as well as more resilient in the face of disruption and external crises.

What might that look like in practice for farmers?

In its simplest form, it could mean getting into a network that lets you listen in on what others are doing that could help you. And on your part, you’d share some of what you’ve learned that is helping you in your own business.

“Perhaps there may be equipment sharing, joint marketing or bulk purchasing opportunities,” Moen says. “Maybe it’s just as simple — and this is something that is undervalued from a collaborative perspective — as being more open with your circumstance as a business owner and the ups and downs of it all. Understanding that people are going through similar challenges can be an excellent collaboration point in the sense of building some confidence and recognizing joint problems.”

A personal journey to collaboration

Moen, as mentioned above, grew up on the fifth-generation family farm at Cabri, and it was there that he began looking for ways to get beyond the traditional grain markets and the cap they put on farm revenues.

This led him to travel the world to explore different business models and then to open 9-Mile Legacy Brewing with his best friend and farming neighbour, Garrett Pederson.

“A couple of years ago, we made a durum wheat beer at the brewery. It was a pride point to re-imagine how we’re approaching ag value and encouraging people to think about the different products that we can make.”

Barriers become bridges

It takes more than a great product to make a great business, though. “Any time you’re starting a business, there’s a number of traditional barriers,” Moen says, who says farmers face a limited labour pool, distance from their customers and more.

And the usual way to overcome them is to throw more money in the pot. But maybe it doesn’t have to cost as much as we’ve thought in past

“When people can authentically, and in good faith, explore with their fellow participants what they do well and don’t do well and how those puzzle pieces might fit together, they need less capital a lot of time,” Moen says he found when he went out talking to successful startups. Their goal, he says, is “to succeed in a much more advantageous way than just chancing it with deep pockets.”

Starting a business still takes something unique and hush-hush. For the brewery, he needed to know how to build a workforce, create a communication system and develop an internal culture that would excel at innovation.

Somehow the two — the product side of the enterprise and the business side of it — have to come together, and that’s what Moen wanted to use his Nuffield scholarship to get more insight into.

Can the ideas of clusters, hubs and networks that seem to work in other industries work in farm country too.

If it’s going to happen, he now says, farmers and business people have to build it, not policymakers or governments.

“The great line that I brought back with me from Australia was, as you’re building these things, you got to actively remove the clutter from the cluster,” Moen says. “That’s not to denigrate the role of policymakers, governments, and capital partners, they’re all really important to get these things up and running. But it’s the people that have skin in the game, the operators that need to set the strategic direction because they are exceptionally good at knowing where their customers are.”

Moen says the way to get there is through the co-opetition model.

“It’s basic human stuff,” he says. “It requires trust, vulnerability, empathy and recognizing that this isn’t a zero-sum game and everybody’s up to this. It’s just a matter of making the choice to invest in that sort of relationship and with a longer view of what success actually means.”

The crux of Moen’s study is about the kind of communities that we want to build in Canada and how we can continue to advance our agricultural value industries.

“We can do that by courting large international players to invest in our provinces and they certainly have a place in building up opportunities of scale, but real diversity and the real contribution of GDP is in having a robust small- to medium-enterprise industry, he says, adding that collaborative business models can contribute to re-localization of economies, less dependence on vulnerable supply chains and improved food security.

“It’s about re-localizing opportunity for people at the end of the day,” Moen says. “We’re talking jobs, local service providers and providing aspirational examples to young entrepreneurs: kids that are looking at what the actual opportunities are in their home provinces. Having a vibrant small- to medium-business ecosystem has such a role to play in all that.”

– This article was originally published in the January 2024 issue of Country Guide.

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“This extension of the Wine Sector Support Program will provide vitally important support to our wineries as they continue to innovate and adapt to challenges so the sector can stay strong and competitive for years to come,” said federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Lawrence MacAulay in a news release.

The extension will cost the federal government up to $177 million, the news release said.

The Wine Sector Support Program, instated in 2022, provides non-repayable grant payments to licensed Canadian wineries based on their bulk wine production, with a maximum of $25 million per fiscal year, the government’s website says.

Wine Growers Canada on its website said the program must continue, “otherwise billions in economic opportunity are left on the table and wineries across Canada will shrink or… go out of business.”

Imports represent 70 per cent of wine sales in Canada, Wine Growers Canada said. Foreign wineries receive government subsidies or lower taxes, the organization added.

Wine Growers Canada said that each dollar of federal funding will generate more than six dollars in transactions in the Canadian economy.

MacAulay announced up to $6.7 million in funding for two other wine and grape initiatives under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership. Both projects, led by the Canadian Grapevine Certification Network, will “advance science and research and increase the competitiveness of the sector.”

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Vineyards nationwide have enough wine in domestic storage to fill 859 Olympic swimming pools, Rabobank said this week in its third-quarter wine report.

“That’s over two billion litres of wine, or over 2.8 billion bottles,” said RaboResearch analyst Pia Piggott, adding that the inventory was depressing prices, particularly for commercial red wines.

Ties with biggest trading partner China deteriorated in 2020 after Australia called for an inquiry into the origins of COVID, triggering reprisals by Beijing, such as anti-dumping duties on Australian wine and barley.

The curbs battered the wine industry, with exports to China shrinking to just A$8.1 million (C$7 million) in the year to June, from a peak of A$1.2 billion for the year to January 2020, when the pandemic began to take hold.

“No other market can quickly compensate for the China market,” said Lee McLean, chief executive of industry body Australian Grape and Wine, thanks to Chinese drinkers’ obsession with red wine.

Diversification into markets such as Britain, Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere in Asia would take time to yield results, McLean added.

China, traditionally an avid purchaser of Australian commodities, including iron ore, resumed buying coal and timber this year after tension between the two has eased since the centre-left Labor party won power in Australia last year.

The recent removal of tariffs on Australian barley has fed hopes for an early easing of the five-year tariffs China imposed on Australian wine in 2021.

But even if the tariffs are lifted this year and Chinese wine consumption recovers, Australia’s wine industry will take at least two years to work through the surplus, Piggott said, as the curbs had coincided with an exceptional growing season.

“This coincided with COVID, logistics bottlenecks and inflation, which were major hurdles in the way of plans to grow and diversify exports,” she added.

“Thus, two-plus years into the tariff, prices of Australian commercial red grapes have significantly declined, and oversupply issues remain.”

Australian wine exports declined a tenth in value to A$1.87 billion and one per cent in volume to 621 million litres in the year ended June, Wine Australia’s Export Report said in July.

This week, Australia’s Treasury Wine Estate, the world’s biggest standalone winemaker, reported a drop in its profits, hurt by lower sales.

Wine sales will not return to the same level for the company even if the high tariffs are dropped, its chief executive said in May.

The crisis has made quality red wines more affordable for Australian domestic consumers, however.

“All we can say is next time you go to buy a bottle of wine, make sure it’s Australian,” McLean said.

— Praveen Menon is a Reuters correspondent in Sydney.

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The federal ag lender on Tuesday said it will offer an unsecured credit line of up to $500,000 with loan processing fees waived, “to help producers, agribusinesses and agri-food operations with their immediate cash flow needs.”

FCC said it’s making the offer to both new and existing customers who are “experiencing financial difficulties, including cash flow challenges, due to higher-than-average input costs and elevated interest rates.”

While the Bank of Canada has maintained its policy rate since January, FCC warned in a March outlook that “additional intervention” could still be required to get inflation to two per cent.

Elevated inflation and interest rates are expected to slow consumer spending and business investments, FCC said in March, adding that if the U.S. Federal Reserve continues raising its policy rate, that could lead to a lower Canadian dollar if the Bank of Canada extends its pause.

A global economic slowdown has also resulted in lower growth in Canadian ag and food export volume, FCC said at the time.

Cost pressures in the “current economic environment” are difficult to pass on, FCC said Tuesday, and that’s led to “tough financial circumstances for some operations.”

“While the current experiences of individual operations within the different agriculture and food sectors are varied, we hope those who identify with these challenges will use this credit line as an opportunity to work through their current position and build back stronger than before,” FCC chief operating officer Sophie Perreault said in a release.

FCC reiterated it can offer flexibility to customers who are going through “challenging business cycles and unpredictable circumstances” on a case-by-case basis, such as through flexible payment options, payment deferrals or credit lines.

For example, the lender said last Thursday it would consider additional short-term credit options, deferral of principal payments and/or other loan payment schedule amendments for customers in B.C.’s wine sector up against financial hardship following “prolonged cold temperatures” last winter that caused significant damage to wine grapevines.

FCC said May 16 it would also consider similar supports for maple syrup producers in Eastern Canada following an “unfavourable change in temperature this spring” that shortened the maple syrup harvest in most parts of the region.

“This limited harvest can cause financial challenges for farm operations – not to mention personal hardship and stress,” Manon Duguay, FCC’s vice-president of operations for Quebec and Atlantic Canada, said in a separate release at the time.

“We stand by our customers over the long term, helping them pursue opportunities and overcome challenges, and this year’s unfavourable temperature has certainly been challenging for many maple syrup business owners.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The International Organisation for Vine and Wine (OIV) said on Thursday that global wine exports in 2022 stood at 37.6 billion euros (C$55.6 billion) as export prices rose 15 per cent on average compared to 2021.

Global wine consumption fell one per cent, to 232 million hectolitres (mhl).

“The war in Ukraine and the associated energy crisis, together with the global supply chain disruptions, lead to a spike in costs in production and distribution,” the OIV said in a statement posted on its website.

Wine exports in 2022 were severely impacted by high inflation and global supply chain problems that led to a significant slowdown of sea freight, it added.

In terms of output, the OIV slightly lowered its estimate for 2022 wine production to 258 mhl from its initial estimate of 259.9 mhl released last October, still about one per cent below the previous year’s output.

The OIV pegged the world’s vineyard area in 2022 at 7.28 million hectares, down 0.4 per cent from 2021, led by Spain — at 955,000 hectares, or 13.1 per cent of the world’s total, and down 0.8 per cent from 2021 — followed by France, China, Italy and Turkey.

Wine production in 2022, however, was led by Italy — at 49.8 mhl, or 19.3 per cent of the world’s total, and down one per cent from 2021 — followed by France, Spain, the U.S. and Australia.

The U.S. led the world in consumption at 15 per cent, followed by France, Italy, Germany and the U.K. The U.S. also led the world in wine imports by volume, followed by Germany, the U.K., France and the Netherlands.

Canada ranked 27th on the OIV’s list of wine-producing nations in 2022, at 692,000 hl, up from 656,000 in 2021. It ranked 12th in wine exports by volume last year, mainly in lower-value bulk wine, at 2.129 mhl, and sixth in imports, at 4.178 mhl.

The OIV doesn’t yet offer data for Canada’s vineyard surface area or wine consumption for 2022. Canada’s 2021 figure for vineyard area was marked at 13,191 hectares, or No. 50 among countries; its wine consumption in 2021 was pegged at 4.22 mhl, for No. 12.

— Reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The changes, which took effect May 11, come at the request of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture (NSFA) — which has said that owners of small farm-level processing facilities shouldn’t be treated the same as multi-million-dollar processing plants, in terms of the required fees and regulatory approvals based on larger volumes of waste to manage.

The smaller operations will now be regulated through standard wastewater approval requirements, the province said.

The province said its Office of Regulatory Affairs and Service Effectiveness estimates the changes will save each on-farm business $308 per year.

“These changes reduce red tape while ensuring that environmental standards are met,” Environment Minister Timothy Halman said in a release. “With input from industry, we are better aligning regulatory approvals to environmental and business needs.”

These activities include construction, operation or reclamation at sites “associated with small farm operations” involving:

• poultry, red meat, inland fish, dairy or dairy products, vegetable, or fruit processing plants;
• distilleries or wineries;
• breweries that produce 150,000 litres or more of alcoholic beverages per year;
• fish meal plants; and
• food additive or supplement manufacturing plants.

Regulatory changes such as these are occurring across the country to better align with smaller farm processing facilities, the ministry said via email.

“Other Canadian jurisdictions are, or are in the process of, moving to a model of regulation for these industries that better align regulatory approvals to the environmental risks,” ministry spokesperson Tracy Baron said.

— Liam O’Connor reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Saskatoon.

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China’s customs authority published new food safety rules in April stipulating all food manufacturing, processing and storage facilities abroad need to be registered by year-end for their goods to access the Chinese market.

But detailed procedures explaining how to get the required registration codes were only issued in October, while a website for companies allowed to self-register went online last month.

“We’re heading for major disruptions after Jan. 1,” said a Beijing-based diplomat from a European country who is assisting food producers with the new measures.

China’s food imports have surged in recent years amid growing demand from a huge middle class. They were worth US$89 billion in 2019, according to a report by the United States Department of Agriculture, making China the world’s sixth largest food importer.

China has tried to implement new rules covering food imports for years, triggering opposition from exporters. The General Administration of Customs of China (GACC), overseeing the latest iteration of the rules, has provided little explanation for why all foods, even those considered low-risk such as wine, flour and olive oil, are covered by the requirements.

Experts say it is an effort to better oversee the large volumes of food arriving at Chinese ports, and place responsibility for food safety with manufacturers rather than the government.

GACC said in a statement sent to Reuters that it had sought public comment on the rules prior to April.

It has “fully considered and actively accepted reasonable suggestions” and strictly followed WTO agreements on implementing food safety measures, it said, adding that it had also responded to company questions.

The European Union has sent four letters to Customs this year requesting more clarity and more time for implementation, said Damien Plan, agriculture counsellor at the European Union Delegation in Beijing.

Last week, GACC agreed that implementation should only apply to goods produced on or after Jan. 1, effectively granting a delay for products already shipped, said the European diplomat, though it has not yet published an official notification.

Still, several diplomats and exporters said they saw the rules as a trade barrier for overseas products.

“We have never had anything this draconian out of China,” said Andy Anderson, executive director of the Western United States Agricultural Trade Association (WUSATA), a trade group that promotes U.S. food exports. He described the rules as a “non-tariff trade barrier.”

Food, especially chilled and frozen food, has already faced severe delays clearing Customs in China in the last year due to coronavirus testing and disinfection measures.

Foods including unroasted coffee beans, cooking oil, milled grains and nuts are among 14 new categories deemed high risk that were required to be registered by the end of October by food authorities of the exporting countries.

Facilities making low-risk foods can register themselves on a website that launched in November but has not always worked.

“The Chinese system is working now but the English one is on a trial version,” said Li Xiang, business development manager at Chemical Inspection and Regulation Services Ltd. (CIRS) Europe, which is helping companies with the registration process.

The rules only apply to facilities making finished products to be exported to China, but it provides little flexibility to change sourcing or labels.

Some U.S. spirits companies have registered but are still unclear on labelling requirements, said Robert Maron, vice-president for international trade at the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

“There is not a lot of time to understand what the requirements are and I think that is the main concern from our membership,” he said.

No Irish whiskey makers assisted by CIRS Ireland have been able to register so far, said Li.

It is not clear what will happen if goods arrive without the required registration codes stuck onto packaging.

“For the moment, the information we got from (Chinese) authorities is that there won’t be a grace period,” he added.

— Reporting for Reuters by Dominique Patton in Beijing and Siddharth Cavale in Bangalore; additional reporting by Julie Ingwersen in Chicago and Francesca Landini in Milan.

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The potential consolidation comes as France, the European Union’s largest agricultural producer, is trying to embrace environmentally conscious farming practices while vying with cheaper grain suppliers such as Russia.

A tie-up could also let InVivo, a grouping of 192 farmer-owned co-operatives, and century-old Soufflet better compete with rivals such as U.S. group Cargill and Germany’s BayWa.

“The combination of InVivo Group and Soufflet Group would lead to the creation of a French champion in agriculture and agribusiness with an international footprint,” they said in a statement.

A deal would bring together their international grain trading activities while also associating complementary businesses with limited overlap, including Soufflet’s flour milling and malt production and InVivo’s wine distribution and garden retail, they said.

The transaction price was not disclosed.

The deal, under which the Soufflet brand would be preserved, could close by the end of 2021, they said.

‘Positive for France’

The talks were welcomed by French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, who said in a statement sent to Reuters that “the creation of this group would be positive for France and French agriculture.”

That contrasted with Le Maire’s initial opposition to a takeover approach for French retailer Carrefour SA by Canadian convenience-store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard, with the minister citing food sovereignty concerns.

InVivo said it expected to finance the acquisition through its own funds, bank loans and potentially by selling stakes in some activities to partners.

InVivo has in recent years sold its animal nutrition division Neovia to U.S. agribusiness group Archer Daniels Midland, while expanding its garden retail business and entering wine merchandising.

It restructured its grain trading unit after losses, and developed a wheat and barley trading joint venture, Grains Overseas, with two other co-operative groups.

Soufflet has been the subject of takeover rumours in the past, partly because of the lack of a family successor to take over from Michel Soufflet, board chairman, and his son Jean-Michel, who is chief executive.

InVivo would maintain Soufflet as a separate entity within the group and no asset sales were planned, InVivo said.

Current Soufflet management would stay for a transition period expected to last a few years, it added.

— Reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide and Gus Trompiz in Paris; additional reporting by Gwenaelle Barzic.

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Jason Hanson expects his crews may only harvest five tons of grapes, including his Chardonnay and Gamay varieties, down from the 25 to 30 tons his fields yielded last year. The birds can have the rest, he said, as the fruit has likely absorbed too much smoke to be salvaged and would produce wine that tastes like a “wet ashtray.”

“With the dense smoke that we’ve had at the ground level for so long now, almost everything has to be affected or damaged,” Hanson said. “I have a yearly fight with the birds. This year I’ll just let them win.”

The historic wildfires across the western U.S., home to the bulk of the country’s vineyards and major producers of crops from apples to zucchini, have ravaged farmers and ranchers already hard hit by the Trump administration’s trade wars and demand disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic.

Atmospheric smoke has obscured grape-ripening sunlight while ash has coated green beans, cauliflower and other produce in nearby fields just days before scheduled harvesting. Poor air quality is slowing harvesting as farms limit fieldwork hours and some run low on particle-filtering masks due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For wineries, the wildfires have only deepened recent wounds. A drop in restaurant traffic and smaller crowds visiting vineyards for tastings had already been sapping key sources of revenue.

Many tasting rooms remain shuttered due to fire and smoke risks, while grapes awaiting harvest in storied wine regions such as Willamette Valley or California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys may be damaged or ruined entirely.

Oregon, Washington state and California together produce about 90 per cent of all U.S. wine. The true impact on the US$70 billion industry will not be known for months as the typical wildfire season is only just beginning, and crop damage can vary greatly from field to field.

“You have a far greater potential for tainted wine the closer you are to the fire,” said Eric Jensen, owner of Booker and My Favorite Neighbor wineries in California’s Paso Robles region.

“We’re testing constantly and we believe in Paso we’ll be blessed because of the distance that the smoke traveled to get to us. But in Napa and Sonoma, the proximity is causing issues.”

Smoke has blanketed much of the U.S. West as fires have charred nearly five million acres, but some wine areas such as Napa, Sonoma, Santa Cruz and Monterey have been much closer to blazes than areas like Santa Barbara and Paso Robles.

Labs overwhelmed

Laboratories that test grapes for smoke contamination are overwhelmed this year, with some taking up to a month to return results, instead of less than a week normally. Vineyards use that data to gauge whether to harvest or not.

Winemakers and scientists are still learning how smoke can affect wine grapes and how the effects can be mitigated.

Australia has been at the forefront of research, as drought-fueled bushfires have riled its industry for years. But studies at American universities have ramped up over the past five years, helped by U.S. Department of Agriculture funding, as climate change is expected to increasingly impact U.S. wineries.

It is too soon to judge how the wildfires will impact 2020 vintages, but harvested grape supplies will likely be smaller, said Glenn Proctor, partner and broker at California-based Ciatti Global Wine + Grape Brokers.

Winemakers short of newly harvested grapes are expected to buy bulk wine from the 2019 season for blending with what is available from this year, he said. Fear of reputational risk will prevent winemakers from bottling and selling any wine with an unpleasant smoke taste, he said.

Ample supplies coming into this season should offset any shortfall from this year’s harvest so work-from-home Zoom Happy Hours will likely not notice any impact, he said.

“I still think we’re going to see some good wines coming out of 2020 because the growing conditions were great through the season,” Proctor said.

“The fires have put a question mark on everything but I’m still hopeful that most of those wines will play out.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Karl Plume in Chicago.

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