The Canadian arm of Mexican baked goods giant Grupo Bimbo plans to wind down its Ben’s Bakery operations in Halifax starting this summer and close its plant in November. Canada Bread said Monday the sliced bread and English muffins made at its Halifax plant “can be produced at other bakeries in Atlantic Canada where there
Canada Bread to shut Ben’s Bakery
Olymel to lay off Que. hog plant staff, cancel hog orders
Quebec pork and poultry packer Olymel has cancelled hog orders from Ontario and plans to lay off non-union staff at one of its hog slaughter plants next week, citing “force majeure” as the plant’s unionized workers walk the picket line. Workers represented by CSN (Confederation des syndicats nationaux) at Olymel’s Vallee-Jonction hog plant in Quebec’s
Wanted: technicians who know how to operate a pitchfork
Volunteers sought for biggest-ever threshing bee in 2016
If you think the days of the threshing bee are long past, you’re mistaken. And if you know what a threshing bee is, the Manitoba Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB) may need your help. In August 2013 a group at Langenburg, Sask. set a world record by having 41 machines
Ontario’s neonic limits tabled for public comment
Proposed new controls on the use and sale of corn and soybean seed treated with neonicotinoid pesticides in Ontario are up for public comment between now and early May. The provincial government made its move Monday — three days ahead of a scheduled meeting between Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal and Grain Farmers of Ontario chairman
Mulroney government axes entire CTC research staff
Our History: March 1987
This advertisement in our March 26, 1987 issue reminds that Lindane-based seed treatments such as Vitavax are no longer registered in Canada. In the news that week, the Mulroney government had axed the Canadian Transport Commission’s entire research staff. This followed slashing of 35 Agriculture Canada research positions the previous year. One analyst noted that
Health Canada clears Canadian firm’s ‘non-browning’ apples
A Canadian company’s genetically modified “non-browning” apples have picked up federal approval for commercial sale after review from Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The Arctic apple, developed by Okanagan Specialty Fruits and submitted for federal approval in 2011, “is safe for consumption, still has all its nutritional value and therefore does not
Monsanto rips cancer agency’s Roundup takedown
The decision by an international group of cancer experts to classify the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide as “probably carcinogenic” has drawn fire from the product’s main maker. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a France-based arm of the World Health Organization, on Friday released its working group’s evaluations on the cancer-causing potential
P.E.I. to offer one-time farm truck registration fee
Prince Edward Island’s farmers, starting next month, will be able pay a one-time fee to register their farm trucks for as long as they own them. The province until now has charged a cut-rate annual registration fee of $10 on trucks weighing at least one ton (10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight or more), if the trucks
All but one avian flu quarantine lifted in B.C.
A table egg layer operation near Langley is now the only farm still under quarantine for avian flu in British Columbia. All 13 properties in B.C.’s Fraser Valley that had been quarantined for highly-pathogenic H5N2 or H5N1 avian flu since the beginning of December have since been culled of birds, cleaned and disinfected. A subsequent
Genetically modified, engineered or just edited?
The result can be the same without the addition of a gene from elsewhere
Just what is a genetically modified organism? Japanese scientists writing in a recent issue of the journal Trends in Plant Science say the answer is not so clear, and call for action to clarify the social issues associated with genetically engineered crops. “Modern genome-editing technology has allowed for far more efficient gene modification, potentially impacting
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
