Young cattle producers needed 

Glacier FarmMedia – It wasn’t hard to find young cattle folk in the barns at Manitoba Ag Days. “They always say (average age) is getting older, but not in livestock, especially not in this kind of seedstock industry,” said Austen Anderson, as he braced himself against one of his Angus bulls. “It’s a young (person’s)[...]



New verified beef program makes a timely debut

The newly launched Verified Beef Production Plus program is taking Canada one step closer in its quest towards verified sustainable beef, says one of its designers. “This is just from my perspective, but we have always had early adopters — the people who believe in it — but there have never been clear market signals,”[...]

U.S. set to continue COOL fight at WTO

Despite three straight rejections of its controversial country-of-origin labelling (COOL) program on imported beef and pork by the World Trade Organization, various reports suggest the United States isn’t prepared to concede defeat on the issue. It’s expected to appeal a Compliance Panel ruling that solidly endorsed two earlier WTO panel decisions that COOL violates international[...]


Think-tank report boosts farmers’ green credentials


KAP president says this year’s combination of flooding and water scarcity shows it’s time for “a rethink”

Manitoba farm groups are lauding a report from a leading think-tank that backs the idea of rewarding farmers for their role in protecting the environment.
The report from the non-partisan Macdonald-Laurier Institute is further evidence “that incentive programs like ecological goods and services are going to be much more effective at meeting society’s objectives than more[...]



Beef industry still 
seeking approval to irradiate ground beef


Canadian cattle producers sought Health Canada approval to irradiate 
ground beef more than 10 years ago. They are still waiting.

The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association once thought it would be just a matter of time before Canadian food companies would get the green light to start irradiating ground beef. 
That was a decade ago, when the CCA submitted a petition to Health Canada seeking regulatory approval for use of irradiation as another tool to reduce pathogens[...]

Livestock briefs, March 8, 2012

Forage specialist advises Texas cattlemen to hold off A Texas AgriLife Extension Service forage specialist is advising state beef producers not to get too enthusiastic about recent rainfalls, which followed many months of record drought. “After the drought, remain destocked,” Dr. Larry Redmon says in an AgriLife release. “Just because you see green in the[...]


Livestock briefs Feb. 2

No E. coli risk 
with wheat DDGS Alberta Beef Producers reports that scientists from Alberta Agriculture, AAFC Lethbridge and private industry are studying the impact of wheat distillers grains on the shedding of E. coli 0157:H7. This research addresses concerns that feeding wheat dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) to feedlot cattle may increase the[...]