American requests for changes to Canada’s supply management system for dairy and poultry are a “non-starter,” said Canada’s agriculture minister on Monday. U.S. negotiators introduced an initial dairy proposal on Friday, which calls for increased transparency and changes to Canada’s milk class system, including the elimination of the new class 7 that has taken away… Read More

The U.S. introduced its much-anticipated proposal regarding dairy during NAFTA negotiations on Friday, although it did not contain an explicit request for a percentage increase in market access into Canada. The American proposal was focused on changing Canada’s milk class system and increasing transparency in supply management. The proposal would reverse recent changes to Canada’s… Read More

The tone surrounding the negotiations to update NAFTA has taken a gloomy turn, especially for agriculture, with a growing consensus that there’s a real chance President Trump will try to follow through on his repeated threats to pull the U.S. out of NAFTA. Even Prime Minister Trudeau, after meeting with Trump on Wednesday, sounded like someone… Read More

What does the show ring at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin and Liberal tax proposals have in common? Depending on the day and the country, you’ll find 22-year-old Dennis Catt in the middle of both. Last week, Catt and his Ontario 4-H judging teammates eyeballed udders and contemplated cow confirmation as they competed… Read More

Last week TransCanada Corp announced its withdrawal from the 1.1 million barrel per day Energy East pipeline project in Canada. The cancellation of this $15.7 billion project has created much unrest or satisfaction depending where you live in Canada. The pipeline’s concept was to take oil east for domestic use and exports abroad. The pipeline… Read More

The Manitoba government released an independent expert legal opinion on whether the federal government has the constitutional authority to impose a ‘backstop’ on carbon pricing on Wednesday. The province says the 64-page assessment, conducted by Dr. Bryan Schwartz at the University of Manitoba, determined Ottawa can impose carbon pricing, but that the province likely would… Read More

Gord Winkel’s occupational history revolves largely around Alberta’s oil sands, having managed operations for Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil and Syncrude Canada. And he’s now bringing his experience in oil and gas workplace safety to the agriculture sector. Currently the University of Alberta’s chair and Industrial Professor of Engineering Safety and Risk Management, Winkel is also the facilitator… Read More

The first three rounds of the three city touring NAFTA talks have seen many handshakes, a few trials balloons and agreement on predictable texts. Round four will begin back in DC mid-week and is expected to have some more drama and rocky moments as predicted by Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland at the outset… Read More

While margins have been “okay” for most of 2017 thanks to lower feed costs, large milk supplies continue to weigh on U.S. dairy prices and the outlook for the dairy market. “We’re so full in terms of capacity for processing, everybody’s looking at where export markets are going to go and how that’s going to… Read More

The Canadian pulse industry is still waiting to hear from India’s government on how it will handle Canadian pulses shipped after September 30, 2017. The latest in a series of exemptions related to India’s fumigation requirement expired at the end of September. “We’re sitting here on the 4th of October and we haven’t heard from… Read More