Alberta Livestock Expo
A new trade show will take place in Lethbridge AB at Exhibition Park on Thursday October 12th from 9 am – 5:30 pm. This new trade show will be a multispecies event, welcoming all aspects of the agriculture industry for the one day show.
Details are available at albertalivestockexpo.com or by contacting Lisa Doyle, Exhibition Manager at 403.305.1563 or lisa@vibranteventmanagement.ca •
Aherne Awards
Do you know of an innovator who should be recognized? Someone who has developed an original solution to answer a pork production challenge? Or found a creative use of a known technology?
The Banff Pork Seminar is proud to offer a chance for you to “strut your stuff” as a technology innovator and show the rest of us how to put it into practice! The Dr. FX Aherne Prize for Innovative Pork Production recognizes innovators involved in the pork industry who are making a difference by applying new technologies or management techniques. Innovators can win valuable prizes and free registration to the 2018 Banff Pork Seminar, January 9-11; you’ll be recognized by your peers and the pork industry and have a chance to present your solution at the 2018 Banff Pork Seminar. Please nominate yourself, or apply on behalf of an innovator that deserves to be recognized. Help us to find these innovators and encourage them to apply for the Dr. FX Aherne Prize for Innovative Pork Production. Specifically, we are looking for innovators who are capable of taking a new research concept, a technology, or even a management concept and apply it successfully in the production of pork. Innovations may be related to, but are not limited to, one of the following areas: Productivity, Profitability, Working Conditions, Animal Well Being, Reduced Environmental Impact, Pork Quality and Safety. Anyone who has developed a solution to a pork production challenge may enter. Innovations must be relevant to North American pork production but do not necessarily have to be currently in use in Canada at the time of application. Application and more information will be available online at www.banffpork.ca. Applications must be received by October 31, 2017.
Apply today! Please contact Conference Coordinator Ashely Steele at pork@ualberta.ca with questions. •
Red Deer Swine Technology Workshop
The Red Deer Swine Technology Workshop will take place in Red Deer at the Sheraton Wednesday October 18th . Some of the topics for the one day session are: Ventilation, Stockmanship: Crates vs Open sows, Farm Safety, CPE, PED, Motivating Your Team, Post-cervical Artificial Insemination, Drug Usage on Farm and Early Nursery Care. Registration now open. For details, registration or sponsor information contact Kimberly Nield at 403.244.7821 or kimberly@conventionall.com. •
APC AGM
The Alberta Pork Congress Annual General Meeting will once again be held as a breakfast meeting prior to the start of Red Deer Swine Technology Workshop Wednesday October 18th, from 7:30am – 8:15am at the Sheraton in Red Deer. At the AGM elections will take place for new members for the Board of Directors. Once the meeting has concluded this will be the first opportunity to book your booth space for the 2018 Alberta Pork Congress Tradeshow. Watch your inbox for details. •
SASK Pork Symposium
The 40th annual Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium will be held Tuesday November 14th and Wednesday November 15th, 2017. As in previous years the Saskatoon Inn in Saskatoon SK will be the venue. The speakers and agenda have been finalized, check page 35 for complete list of topics and speakers. The Saskatoon Inn and Conference Centre, 2002 Airport Drive, is offering a conference rate of $159.00 for Standard Double/ Queen rooms. The room block is in effect and we encourage to reserve early by calling reservations at 306.242.1440 or emailing reservations@saskatooninn.com. For additional information on Symposium contact the Symposium Coordinator at 306.343.3506 or email info@saskpork.com. Full program, registration and sponsorship opportunities now available on-line at www.saskpork.com •
Alberta Pork AGM
Alberta Pork Annual General Meting will be held Thursday November 30th at the Calgary Airport Marriott In-Terminal Hotel. More details will be available in the near future. For inquiries contact Scott Archer at Alberta Pork. 780.440.8460 or email scott.archer@albertapork.com •
Brandon Hog & Livestock Show
Brandon Hog & Livestock Show, formally known as Hog Days, will be held in December. The one day show will be at the Keystone Center in Brandon, MB on Thursday December 14th, 2017 from 10 am – 4:30pm. For details and exhibitor information contact Sunil Kawthekar Ph. 204.726.6482 or Email: Sunil.Kawthekar@gov.mb.ca or online at www.hogdaysbrandon.ca
For details about the Pork Quality Competition contact Ron Bazylo at E: Ron.Bazylo@gov.mb.ca or Ph: 204.572.5282. Cash prizes awarded for top three carcasses. •
Banff Pork Seminar
2018 Banff Pork Seminar which will take place January 9 – 11th, 2018 will be held at the Banff Springs Hotel. The full agenda is up on the banff pork seminar website.
Some key note speaker topic highlights are: When the headline is YOU, Trends in Animal Agriculture, Future of Agriculture and Hog Market Outlook. Accompanied by a varied interest breakout sessions: Mycotoxins, Labour Workshop, Feeding the Grow-Finish Pig, Piglet Management, Newsest Innovation, Sow Lifetime Productivity and Swine Health & Antibiotics. Closing off with I Farming & I Grow it.
On line registration is now open. A block of rooms are available at the conference rate, book today. For full details or more information check the website banffpork.ca or contact Ashely Steeple conference coordinator at 780.492.3651 or email pork@ualberta.ca •
Manitoba Swine Seminar
The annual Manitoba Swine Seminar will take place at the Victoria Inn and Conference Centre adjacent to the airport in Winnipeg. The dates are Wednesday and Thursday February 7th & 8th, 2017. For details or information please contact Dallas Balance at 204.475.8585 or email dallas@goodwinballance.ca •
Cramer Ag Expo
The 8th annual Cramer Ag Expo will be held in Swift Current at Kinetic Park on Thursday February 22nd, 2018. The coveted Cramer Cup series winners will be announced onsite. The highlight of the day is hog carcass competition all the meat will be donated to charity. For details on the Cramer Cup series contact Doug Cramer at 306.520.3553.
As of press time the trade show is 85% sold out , earlybird booking deadline is November 30th for details on the trade show contact Kelly Turcotte tradeshow co-ordinator at 306.737.6262 or email kelly_turcotte@hotmail.com •
Doering Outlines CFIA Mandate
Ron Doering, the first president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, says it has two chief mandates – to ensure food is safe for consumers and to promote Canada’s food industry. He says they work together because when Canada can demonstrate that it has safe food, its global reputation is solid and companies are able to export. He says that when he was recently invited to speak to a convention of food-industry people, they told him the CFIA no longer cares about promoting the industry.
Since it moved to Health Canada, inspectors seem to care only about food safety, he says they told him. He comments about this in a column he writes for Food In Canada. Column comments: Would that the CFIA actually did a good job of fulfilling its foremost mandate. However, as we learned in a court case about a cheating veterinarian, thousands of fraudulent Holstein embryos moved into international markets, seriously tarnishing the Canadian industry.
And more recently, we read that the United States Department of Agriculture found “systemic failures” in Canada’s meat inspection system. That’s the most serious shortcoming ever identified by American inspectors who have been checking Canadian meat-packing plants for at least 40 years. And when Doering was president, the Americans were finding fault – confirmed by on-site Canadian inspectors – when they toured Canadian food plants. The Canadian brass on those tours had to concede that what the Americans identified were, indeed, failures to comply with Canadian standards.From my perspective, I think Health Canada may have finally put the priority for meat inspectors in the right place. It’s up to the companies to develop their reputations. •
— By Jim Romahn
More Pigs in Canada
For the fourth year in a row, pig numbers increased when they were counted on July 1. There were 14.1 million, two per cent more than last year and 12 per cent more than July 1, 2012. There were also one per cent more hog farms, reports Statistics Canada – 7,880 this July 1. The breeding herd was 1.3 million, a one per cent increase from a year ago, but there were four per cent more weaners weighing between 23 and 53 kilograms. There were 2.5 million of them. The number of piglets under seven kilograms also increased by four per cent to1.9 million. The number of hogs weighing more than 54 kilograms increased by two per cent from last year. •
— By Jim Romahn
No More Backroom Deals on Food Guide
There will be no private backroom deals when it comes to writing the new Canada Food Guide, say officials at Health Canada. They also say decisions will be based on the best science available, not less respected tests put forward by special interest organizations. The process of writing a new Canada Food Guide has been fraught in the past by intense lobbying, including farm commodity associations both promoting and defending inclusion of their products. The beef, pork, egg and milk associations have been on the defensive. The fresh fruits and vegetables associations have been gaining ground because they have had strong support from nutritionists and health advocates. Health Canada said it will no longer be meeting privately with lobbying associations and commodity organizations. What they have to say to the Food Guide writers will be said in public. •
— By Jim Romahn
GVF Announces New Alliance
The Grand Valley Fortifiers (GVF) group of companies is pleased to announce a new alliance that has been formed between MS Schippers Canada Ltd. and Farmers Farmacy® (a company within the GVF group of companies). Recently, Farmers Farmacy® will become the master distributor of MS Schippers’ HyCare™ focus products including: MS Topfoam, MS T&T Cleaner, MS Megades Novo, MS Dry Care Plus, MS Goldmix pH, Di-o-clean, MS Equal Coating, MS Support and Hoof Care.
The GVF group of companies and MS Schippers group of companies are both second generation family businesses that focus on providing leading edge nutritional, hygiene, animal care, and equipment products to livestock and poultry producers. Both of these companies have a mission to allow family farms to be more profitable and to create healthy and safe meat, milk and eggs that meet consumers’ desires. With much aligned missions and focuses, both GVF and MS Schippers Canada Ltd. are confident that this alliance will be long-term and beneficial for the producers in Canada. •
Osborne Takes Top Honours at WPX
Osborne’s FAST Start wean-to-finish feeder named Producer Choice at World Pork Expo Osborne was pleased to announce that it had been named winner of the Producer Choice Award for its new FAST Start wean-to-finish feeder at the 2017 World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, USA.
FAST Start is the answer to the problem of efficiently feeding very young pigs, and yet, preventing excessive feed waste that occurs as pigs grow. Traditional, gravity-flow feeders start young pigs easily, but require multiple-times-a-day adjusting to prevent feed waste. But now, Osborne’s new wean-to-finish feeder combines both gravity-flow feeding with Osborne’s no-waste, mechanical-flow feed delivery system, a signature feature of the Big Wheel family of feeders, also offered by Osborne. The conversion of the FAST Start feeder’s gravity-to-mechanical feed delivery system is done automatically by the pigs. This automated feature allows pigs to grow from wean to finish on a single feeder and eliminates adjustments and feed waste, allowing animals to grow efficiently.•
Bacon Prices Soar in July, Plunge in September
Pork belly prices have decline by 50 per cent in a few weeks in the key U.S. markets. Canadians simply watch and follow. Steiner Consulting Group, DLR Division, Inc., says that as surprising as this is, it’s not all that unusual. Pork belly prices have often soared, then plunged, the company says.
Often people assume bacon demand has increased when belly price rise, but the company says demand discussions that center over wholesale prices fail to recognize that one needs to wait until the consumer is faced with the shift in price before coming to any meaningful conclusions. Demand indexes use retail prices for precisely that reason. Often it takes time for market participants to adjust to shifts in supply availability. They also may employ risk management tools that delay the effect of higher prices.
And finally, some end users may simply have commitments that they need to fulfill and therefore have little choice but to pay up, not because their demand curve has changed but because, in the short term, they simply have no choice. •
— By Jim Romahn
Interest Rates affect Hog Producer’s Bottom Line
Tyler Fulton, the Director of Risk Management with h@ms Marketing Services said two financial components, interest rates and the exchange rate between the Canadian and U.S. dollars are critical in the Canadian hog producers’ bottom line.
“I think that’s largely the focus of producers right now is the effect that interest rate changes have had on the Canadian dollar. We’ve effectively seen a six cent run up in the Canadian dollar over the last month and that no doubt is a negative occurrence,” he said. “With each one penny move in the Canadian dollar, you can expect about a $2 per 100-kilogram price decline in Canadian hog prices. So this recent rally has resulted in roughly a $12 decline in Canadian hog prices. Thankfully, North American hog prices or U.S. prices are stable enough so that it hasn’t shifted us from profitable to unprofitable, but it’s no doubt taken a bit out of the margin for Canadian hog producers.”
He said it calls into question whether or not the market could continue to appreciate. “It seems as though it’s definitely at the high end of the recent range, but it calls into question whether or not we can expect further gains. Just another solid reason for producers to be hedging a good portion of their winter production,” said Fulton. “It’s been our experience the producers are largely well positioned for the next eight months of hog production. Most of those producers got in and priced a significant portion of their output when it was evident that prices were profitable and that hog numbers were going to be large, and that is likely to serve them well.” He said the jury is still out as to whether or not the market will come under further pressure. But generally speaking, the recommendations over the last couple of months of being roughly 50 per cent hedged over September through February timeframe, there’s a lot of producers that have heeded that, and he thinks are well positioned to maintain profitability. •
— By Harry Siemens
Canadians Ignorant About Supply Management
More than half of Canadians think beef and pork are under supply management and that milk is not. In a survey by Angus Reid of 1,512 Canadians during June and July, only four per cent said they understand a lot about supply management. Fifty-two per cent believe beef is supply managed and 51 per cent believe milk is not. The results open questions about claims from the milk marketing boards that most Canadians support their supply management. •
— By Jim Romahn
FCC Launches Drive
Farm Credit Canada launched the 14th year of FCC Drive Away Hunger by contributing $100,000 to school meal programs across Canada, in addition to announcing this year’s goal for its annual food drive. “We are always looking for more ways to support those who are working everyday to help alleviate hunger in Canada,” said Michael Hoffort, FCC president and CEO, adding this year’s goal is to collect the equivalent of five million meals for Canada’s food banks and hunger programs. FCC offices across Canada are now collecting food and cash donations until October 13. Beginning on October 10, FCC Drive Away Hunger tractor tours will take place in Alberta (Camrose, Lloydminster), Ontario (London, Wyoming, Thornton), Quebec (Ange-Gardien), Nova Scotia (Truro) and Saskatchewan (Yorkton, Humboldt, Regina) to collect food and donations from individuals and organizations, including industry partners and schools. FCC is starting this year’s campaign with the $100,000 to support food programs offered at 100 schools selected by FCC offices across Canada based on need. Each school is receiving $1,000. “There are always people in our communities in need of a helping hand and no child should ever have to make it through a school day on an empty stomach,” said Hoffort, noting that hunger touches over 860,000 Canadians each month, many of whom are children. The launch precedes Hunger Awareness Week from September 18-22, 2017 which aims to raise awareness about the issue of hunger in Canada. FCC Drive Away Hunger involves driving a tractor and trailer through communities to collect food and cash donations for food banks across the country. One hundred per cent of donations go to Canadian food banks, and anyone can visit www.fccdriveawayhunger.ca to make a monetary donation. FCC’s partners are a major reason for the program’s success. •
— By Jim Romahn
Canadian Agri-food Exporters Mark Provisional Application of CETA
The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance (CAFTA) welcomes the beginning of provisional application of the historic Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union (EU) and looks forward to timely resolution of remaining barriers.
Recently, CAFTA representatives attended a celebration of the agreement held by the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of International Trade. “While we urge the government to resolve the outstanding issues, we are also encouraged that Canada is forging ahead with its commitment to freer trade with the world’s second largest economy,” said Brian Innes, CAFTA president. “Eventually, CETA will mean preferential access for Canadian agri-food to an $18 trillion market that includes 500 million people.”
The potential for Canada making greater trade inroads in EU markets is huge. Canada exported $3.5 billion in agriculture and food products to the EU in 2016 – making it the country’s fourth largest export destination. When the CETA is fully implemented, it will eliminate EU tariffs on almost 94 per cent of Canada’s agri-food products. While the results won’t be immediate for some agri-food sectors, the agreement presents the potential to drive additional exports of up to $1.5 billion per year. This includes $600 million in beef, $400 million in pork, $100 million in grains and oilseeds, $100 million in sugar containing products and a further $300 million in processed foods, fruits and vegetables. “At a time when some countries are looking inward, it’s critical that Canada continues to pursue free trade agreements like CETA,” Innes said. “Our growing export-oriented agri-food sector relies on access to markets. We encourage our government officials to keep up the hard work required to resolve remaining issues.”
Innes cited the slow progress the EU is making to allow real, commercially viable access to the EU for agri-food exporters. This includes progress on meat processing protocols, crop protection products, country of origin labelling and the timely approval of biotechnology traits. CAFTA members are also very concerned with recent protectionist measures from Member States under the guise of country of origin labelling provisions. These measures are not in the spirit of CETA and threaten to fragment the common EU market. •
U.S. Produces Record Meat Volume
The United States produced a monthly record volume of meat this August – a total of 4.63 billion pounds. That’s four per cent more than last August. Production for the first eight months of this year is also up by four per cent from last year. Pork production totalled 2.21 billion pounds, up by three percent from last August, and matched the increase in the number of hogs slaughtered – up by three per cent to 10.7 million head. The average live weight increased by two pounds to 278 pounds. •
— By Jim Romahn
