Category: Agriculture

Officials flagged 900 food items from China with ‘problems’ over two years

CanadianInvestor
Officials flagged 900 food items from China with ‘problems’ over two years
OTTAWA — Canadian inspectors intercepted nearly 900 food products from China over concerns about faulty labels, unmentioned allergens and harmful contaminants that included glass and metal between 2017 and early 2019, according to internal federal records. The document provides an inside look at imports from China that caught the attention of officials for appearing to fall short of Canadian standards — from gum balls with... Read More

Quebec’s biggest agri-food company buys pork and milling assets of F. Menard

CanadianInvestor
Quebec’s biggest agri-food company buys pork and milling assets of F. Menard
MONTREAL — La Coop federee, Quebec’s largest agri-food company, has signed a deal to buy the pork and milling assets of F. Menard. The two companies say La Coop’s Olymel division will absorb F. Menard’s slaughtering and processing operations, and the Sollio Agriculture division will handle the company’s animal feed operations. F. Menard employs more than 1,200 people with an annual production of over... Read More

Judge to reassess $80 million award in Monsanto cancer case

CanadianInvestor
Judge to reassess $80 million award in Monsanto cancer case
SAN FRANCISCO — A U.S. judge will reconsider a jury’s $80 million damage award to a California cancer victim who used Monsanto’s Roundup weed-killer. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said at a hearing Tuesday that he will reduce but not entirely eliminate punitive damages for what he called the company’s “reprehensible” conduct, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The judge said... Read More

Nutrien says 34 workers trapped underground after service shaft malfunction

CanadianInvestor
Nutrien says 34 workers trapped underground after service shaft malfunction
SASKATOON — Nutrien Ltd. says 34 maintenance workers have been trapped in its Cory potash mine in Saskatchewan since Tuesday afternoon. Company spokesman Will Tigley says the service shaft to lift the workers out of the mine has stopped working and the company is working on a solution. He says the maintenance workers are safe underground and have halted work. Tigley says the... Read More

CN Rail on pace for record movement of western Canadian grain after strong June

CanadianInvestor
CN Rail on pace for record movement of western Canadian grain after strong June
WINNIPEG — Canadian National Railway says it is on track to move record quantities of western Canadian grain after a strong June. The country’s largest railway says it transported more than 2.3 million tonnes of grain last month. The total was up nearly 16 per cent from the 1.99 million tonnes moved last year and above the three-year average of 1.8 million tonnes.... Read More

Saskatchewan ends fiscal year with lower deficit, more revenue from potash boost

CanadianInvestor
Saskatchewan ends fiscal year with lower deficit, more revenue from potash boost
REGINA — The Saskatchewan government ended the last fiscal year with a lower deficit than initially planned. The province reported Thursday that it ended 2018-19 with a deficit of $268 million — almost $100 million lower than what was budgeted. It also said $206 million more revenue flowed into government coffers than what was forecast. Minister of Finance Donna Harpauer said that was largely... Read More

Pea-based pants may be next frontier as Lululemon looks at crops for clothes

CanadianInvestor
Pea-based pants may be next frontier as Lululemon looks at crops for clothes
VANCOUVER — Lululemon Athletica Inc. wants customers to have more pea in their yoga pants. The athleisure retailer presented the idea at Protein Industries Canada’s (PIC) pitch day Monday in a talk titled: Clothing the World with Crops, according to a photo of a PowerPoint slide. Lululemon’s pitch focused on using byproducts from pea processing as inputs for new clothing materials,... Read More

Productivity gains outpace steep rise in agricultural energy use since 1990

CanadianInvestor
Productivity gains outpace steep rise in agricultural energy use since 1990
CALGARY — Third-generation farmer Ron Lamb remembers his father pulling six-metre-wide crop-seeding equipment around his southern Alberta grain fields in the 1990s, overlapping on each pass to make sure he covered all the ground. “When my dad was seeding the soil, he was using a 20-foot-wide piece of machinery and he was eyeballing or judging how much overlap on each pass... Read More

Trudeau worried China could target imports of other Canadian products

CanadianInvestor
Trudeau worried China could target imports of other Canadian products
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he’s worried an ongoing diplomatic dispute could see China target imports of other Canadian agricultural products as concerns grow about soybean shipments in particular. One industry leader said Thursday that, without a clear explanation, Canadian soybean exports to China plunged from 3.2 million tons over the final four months of 2018 to just 3,700 tons through the first four months of this... Read More

Canada’s two largest railways moved record grain tonnage in April

CanadianInvestor
Canada’s two largest railways moved record grain tonnage in April
MONTREAL — Canada’s two largest railways say they moved a record amount of grain out of Western Canada in April. Canadian National Railway says it shipped 2.72 million tonnes of grain, while Calgary-based rival Canadian Pacific Railway says it moved 2.64 million tonnes. Montreal-based CN says its grain shipments for the month compared with a three-year average of 2.23 million tonnes.... Read More