The dairy world has been turned upside down seemingly overnight. Whether it’s north or south of the Canada/U.S border, dairy farmers have to dump milk as the entire value chain adjusts to the disappearance of restaurant and foodservice dairy demand and a spike in retail demand. Michael Dykes, CEO of the International Dairy and Food… Read More
I’ve seen over the last few days a lot of stories, comments, and mixed messages about farmers having to dump milk. I thought I’d clear a few things up with my perspective, direct from the farm. We were included in the farmers asked to dump milk. We dumped a little over 4,000 litres of raw,… Read More
The marketing board that oversees the hog industry in Quebec has given more time to the province’s pork producers and processors to come to an agreement on how to handle pigs coming from outside the province following the COVID-19-related closure of an Olymel pork processing plant. Ontario pork producers dealing with a backlog of market-ready… Read More
This is an updated story Maple Leaf Foods has closed its Brampton poultry processing plant after a total of three staff members have now tested positive for COVID-19. Initially, the company had announced no closures after individual staff members had tested positive at two plants: the Brampton plant and the Heritage plant at Hamilton, Ont…. Read More
In a time like this, there’s so much financial turmoil out there, and many people concerned about what their farm business looks like as we try to get to the other side of COVID-19. We’ve got major demand deterioration in the protein markets, there’s milk dumping going on in parts of the U.S. and Canada… Read More
There are some really great things happening during this COVID-19 pandemic. Families are eating dinner together and reconnecting over board games and puzzles; people are learning new hobbies and skills, such as cooking and baking; and, people of all walks of life are sewing and welding whatever they can to help the health industry fight… Read More
The fourteen day closure of an Olymel hog plant in Quebec has Ontario pork producers scrambling to find a slaughter destination for their finished hogs. Ontario producers normally ship around 20,000 pigs to Quebec for processing each week. The plant at Yamachiche, Que. and its 1000 employees have not been operating since March 29 after… Read More
It doesn’t matter if you’re looking at cash prices, lean hog futures, weaners, or fat hogs — hog prices were down, down, down, across the board by the end of the first week of April. The crash echoed in the cattle markets, comes as the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic hits North America and… Read More
The Ontario government has announced that farmers will have until June 30, 2020 to apply for or make changes to coverage under the risk management program (RMP) for Livestock and RMP: Grains and Oilseeds, Ontario’s crop and livestock insurance programs. Extending the RMP deadlines “gives farmers more time to make business decisions and to assess… Read More
Olymel has notified pork producers in Ontario who ship to its processing plants in Quebec that it intends to exercise the force majeure clause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to industry sources. By invoking the clause, the company would no longer be required to purchase market hogs under the terms of the contracts it… Read More
The reduction in gasoline usage across North America has put a death grip on ethanol producers. Plants have been scaling back production to try and stay solvent as storage capacity fills. Aside from the impact less ethanol production has on corn and utility wheat demand, livestock producers that use distillers’ dried grains (DDGs) in feed… Read More
The packing industry is crucial to the entire food value chain in agriculture and, with that, comes the importance of government inspectors. The question is, what happens if these inspectors contract COVID-19 or if they aren’t able to work due to the risk of contracting the virus? The issue was highlighted with the partial closure… Read More
Dairy Farmers of Ontario has advised farmers that milk dumping, in rotation, will occur beginning this week, as the industry adjusts to the new demand curves during COVID-19 and the social distancing it requires. Several provinces, Ontario included, saw a large spike in demand at the onset of the virus-induced isolation period. However, the resulting… Read More
Olymel’s decision to shutter a Quebec pork processing plant for a full two weeks after nine staff tested positive for COVID-19 means that the pork industry has had to mobilize to ensure pork continues to be processed and that pork producers have somewhere to deliver hogs. “There’s a lot of upheavals right now, in our… Read More
Devin Dreeshen, Alberta’s Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, has announced the creation of Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR), a non-profit, arm’s-length agriculture research organization. The creation of RDAR is the result of consultation with farmers, industry, and key partners in the agricultural sector, the province says. It was established so that farmers, in collaboration with… Read More