“We kept hearing anecdotally that these Californian honeybees were surviving with way fewer treatments. I wanted to test them rigorously and understand the driving force behind what the beekeepers were seeing,” said Genesis Chong-Echavez, a UCR graduate student and lead author of the study, in an article from the university.

WHY IT MATTERS: Varroa mites can devastate Canadian beekeepers’ hives, and go-to control methods have become less effective, leading producers to look for new methods to protect honeybees.

Varroa mites are an invasive parasite that has plagued North American beekeepers since the late 1980s. The mites weaken the bees by feeding on their fat stores, and also can carry viruses. Varroa mites are a consistent contender among the top four causes of winter bee loss in Canada, as noted by the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists.

Chong-Echavez’s team found bee colonies led by locally-raised Californian hybrid honeybee queens had about 68 per cent fewer mites, on average, than hives with commercial queens.

While these populations were not entirely varroa mite-free, they were more than five times less likely to hit the threshold at which chemical treatment is necessary.

Local bee larvae attract fewer mites

The resistant bees came from a genetically-mixed population established in southern California — often from “feral” colonies living in trees, the UC Riverside article said. They were found to have mixed ancestry steming from African, eastern European, Middle Eastern and western European genetics.

Varroa mites must enter bee brood cells to reproduce. In lab experiments with developing honeybee larvae, researchers found mites were less attracted to the locally-adapted bees than commercial bees.

“What surprised me most was the differences showed up even at the larval stage,” Chong-Echavez said. “This suggests the resistance mechanism may go deeper than some kind of behaviour and may be genetically built into the bees themselves.”

The research team next intends to investigate the signals that may make the locally-adapted larvae less attractive to mites.

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Officials in the most populous U.S. state expect to confirm additional cases in people who have contact with infected dairy cattle, the California Department of Public Health said.

The outlook for more cases follows a surge in infections of dairy cows in the biggest milk-producing U.S. state.

Nearly 300 dairy herds across 14 states tested positive so far this year, with about a third of the cases found in California since late August, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Pasteurized milk and dairy products remain safe to consume, California’s public health department said.

A total of 16 people exposed to dairy cows and poultry have tested positive nationwide in 2024. Another person in Missouri who had no immediate known contact with animals also tested positive.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that cases in people exposed to infected animals are “not unexpected.” Risks to the general public are low, the CDC said.

The virus’ jump to cattle and infections of farm workers have worried scientists and federal officials about the risks to humans.

There is no known link or contact between any of California’s confirmed or possible cases, suggesting the virus spread from animals to humans in the state and not from person to person, the California Department of Public Health said.

All of the people had contact with animals at different farms and experienced mild symptoms, including eye redness or discharge, the department said. It said none were hospitalized.

Last week, California reported two human cases in dairy workers.

In those cases, there were no genetic changes to the virus observed that are known to be associated with an increased ability to infect or spread between people, the CDC said. There were also no changes known to reduce susceptibility to antiviral medications, the agency said.

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More than 190 herds have been infected across the U.S. since March, along with 13 dairy and poultry farm workers, according to federal data. No human cases were confirmed in California, and the virus remains a low risk to the general public.

Efforts to prevent the spread of the virus were being seen at state fairs around the U.S., including he use of fake cows for milking demonstrations, increased testing, quarantines and cancelations of events in some states, according to reports.

Meanwhile, the Philippines lifted its ban on importing domesticated and wild birds, including poultry products, from California and South Dakota, Manila’s farm ministry said on Aug. 31. The Philippines imposed the temporary ban on California in January and on South Dakota in November last year after confirmed outbreaks of H5N1 subtype of the highly pathogenic avian influenza, which has killed millions of infected birds and poultry.

In Canada, there have yet to be any confirmed cases of bird flu in dairy cattle with the last outbreak in a commercial poultry flock coming six months ago. However, cases in wild birds continue to be found. In it’s Sep. 4 report the World Organisation for Animal Health revealed cases of bird flu in wild birds in Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Ontario. Only one primary control zone for highly pathogenetic avian influenza (HPAI) remains active in Canada. That zone involves a premises in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, where the presence of HPAI was found in a backyard poultry flock on November 15, 2023.

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Upholding a permanent injunction, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco found it unconstitutional to force Bayer’s Monsanto unit, which makes Roundup, and other agricultural businesses to provide California’s proposed carcinogen warnings under a state law known as Proposition 65.

Writing for a 2-1 majority, Circuit Judge Consuelo Callahan said making the producers a “billboard” for California’s “at best, disputed” message that glyphosate is unsafe violated their First Amendment commercial speech rights, despite the state’s substantial interest in its citizens’ health.

“Compelling sellers to warn consumers of a potential ‘risk’ never confirmed by any regulatory body — or of a hazard not ‘known’ to more than a small subset of the scientific community — does not directly advance that interest,” she wrote.

Bayer called the decision “a strong blow against compelled warnings for Roundup that are not supported by science and will be important in the company’s ongoing personal injury litigation.”

California’s original warnings linked glyphosate to cancer. A revised warning proposed last year referred to findings in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the France-based specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic” to humans.

Callahan rejected all the warnings, saying they required Bayer and other objectors to convey a “controversial, fiercely contested message that they fundamentally disagree with.”

Tuesday’s decision upheld a June 2020 injunction issued by U.S. District Judge William Shubb in Sacramento.

“We are disappointed,” the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, which had appealed the injunction, said in an email. It declined to address whether it planned another appeal.

Lawyers for 13 agriculture and business trade groups that also opposed the warnings did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bayer has faced extensive litigation over Roundup, including three losses in trials last month, since it bought Monsanto for US$63 billion in 2018.

It settled most Roundup claims for US$10.9 billion in 2020, but by early this year still faced about 45,000 claims.

— Jonathan Stempel is a Reuters correspondent covering U.S. federal and state courts from New York.

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The company, owned by private equity firm Paine Schwartz Partners, has about $679 million in debt, and plans to sell its business in bankruptcy, according to bankruptcy court documents (all figures US$).

Prima grows peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots on its 18,000 acres of farmland in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

Prima has struggled under its high debt load, and it has also faced significant setbacks since 2020, including a salmonella outbreak that led to a recall of peaches in the U.S. and the 2020 Creek Fire in California, which damaged orchards and reduced crop yields and quality.

Prima will try to find a buyer for its assets by November, hoping to avoid an upcoming cash crunch between its profitable harvest seasons. Prima has about $26 million in cash, and it could run out of money by January 2024 if it doesn’t find a buyer before next year’s harvest season begins in May, according to court documents.

If no buyer emerges, Prima will pivot to a debt restructuring or a liquidation of its business, according to court documents.

The company was formed from a 2019 merger of Gerawan Farming Inc. and Wawona Packing Company. The company had over $300 million in sales revenue in 2022, with 60 per cent of that coming from sale of peaches, according to court documents.

— Dietrich Knauth reports on U.S. bankruptcy and product liability law for Reuters from New York City.

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On May 11, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the answer is yes.

The result was determined by a 5-4 vote in the court case, National Pork Producers Council versus Ross.

Pork producers sued California over a law that state’s voters had adopted in 2018. A ballot vote at the time had returned over 63 per cent approval of the law, which set new conditions for raising hogs, veal calves and egg-laying chickens whose meat or eggs are sold in California.

As a specialist in animal law, I expect this will result in a patchwork of laws that are likely to make U.S. meat producers very uncomfortable. Ultimately, it could push Congress to set federal standards.

California produces virtually no pork, but represents about 15 per cent of the U.S. pork market.

At most commercial hog farms in the U.S., pregnant sows have historically been kept in gestation crates, which measure about two feet by seven feet — enough room for animals to sit, stand and lie down, but not enough to turn around. California’s law requires that each sow must have at least 24 square feet of floor space — nearly double what most now get.

The National Pork Producers Council argued that this requirement imposed heavy compliance costs on farms and restricted interstate commerce. The U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause delegates the regulation of interstate commerce to the federal government.

In a series of cases over the past 50 years, the Supreme Court has made clear that it will strike down any state law that seeks to control commerce in another state or give preference to in-state commerce.

READ MORE: California could set the rules on raising pigs

Congress has remained mute on standards for handling farm animals, which are not covered under the 1966 Animal Welfare Act. Consequently, each state regulates this issue within its borders.

Nine states in addition to California have adopted laws requiring pork producers to phase out gestation crates. The law in Massachusetts, like California’s, would also apply to retail sales of pork raised elsewhere, but its enforcement has been on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the California case.

The California law says that if producers want to sell pork in California, they must raise pigs under conditions that comply with the state’s regulations. Farmers do not have to meet these standards unless they want to sell in California. It applies equally to both in-state and out-of-state producers, and so does not directly discriminate between states in a way that would constitute a clear commerce-clause violation.

However, as the Supreme Court noted, major producers, including Hormel and Tyson, have said they will be able to comply with the California standard. Niman Ranch, a network of family farmers who raise livestock humanely and sustainably, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court supporting California.

Although rejecting the pork industry’s position, justices in the majority disagreed as to why the California law should be upheld. Some held that pork producers had not proved that the law would substantially interfere with interstate commerce. Others argued that, regardless of the degree of interference, it was inappropriate to ask courts to balance compliance costs for the industry against state voters’ moral concerns about animal welfare.

“While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority, “the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list.”

Similarly, dissenting justices differed as to why the California law posed a constitutional problem. Some asserted that the substantial interference requirement had been met. Only one held that the California law should be void because the animal welfare improvements were not substantial enough to overcome the increased cost.

With the precedent of the California case, states with the most progressive animal welfare policies — primarily west coast and northeast states — will be able to effectively set national animal welfare standards. Conceivably, California might also be able to require basic conditions for human labour, such as minimum wage standards, associated with products sold in California.

I expect that within five years, Congress will enact national legislation on farm animal welfare issues that will pre-empt differing state laws.

It is impossible to predict now whether a new national law would improve animal welfare or adopt existing poor welfare practices — but California’s win represents a major victory for animal welfare lobbyists.

Note: In 2014, the Canadian pork sector agreed to phase out gestation crates by 2024 using updated standards from the National Farm Animal Care Council. A later proposal to extend the deadline to 2029 has been stalled, although several major pork or hog producing companies have already touted their transition to group housing.

– David Favre is Professor of Law & The Nancy Heathcote Professor of Property and Animal Law at Michigan State University. This is an update of an article originally published in The Conversation, by Reuters, in October 2022.

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If individual states can introduce non-tariff trade barriers, “it will change the fundamental dynamic of how we can handle international trade negotiations,” said Stephen Heckbert, executive director of the Canadian Pork Council.

On May 11, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld California’s Proposition 12, which set new minimum space requirements for sows, laying hens and veal calves. It also banned sales of meat or eggs from animals housed in barns that don’t meet those standards, even if the animals were not raised in California.

The American pork industry challenged the law on the grounds that it impermissibly regulated out-of-state farmers. California imports much of its pork from outside the state.

Why it matters: Beyond the direct trade implications of Prop 12, the court case sets a precedent for state power that pork groups worry could hinder the Canadian industry’s ability to navigate U.S. markets.

Canadian producers exported nearly 6.7 million hogs to the U.S. in 2022, with millions shipped as weanlings from Manitoba.

The Manitoba Pork Council is concerned that local producers will not be able to export weanlings to the U.S. if their barns don’t comply with Prop 12.

“This is something that’s not going to be confined just to California,” said general manager Cam Dahl.

Several other states have similar legislation and were awaiting the Supreme Court decision before putting them into effect, he noted.

“We don’t negotiate separate trade agreements with 50 states. We need to be able to have a North American market that’s integrated, allows for the free flow of product and isn’t different in every different state.”

The viability of these state laws must still be explored through an international trade lens. Heckman said the Canadian government will need to speak with American counterparts.

In March 2022, the CPC joined Mexico and the Illinois Pork Producers in filing an argument supporting an appeal against Prop 12. It noted the integrated nature of the North American pork industry.

“California’s extraterritorial regulation of Mexican and Canadian sow farms would thwart those nations’ own considered choices about how to protect animal welfare,” the joint submission said.

The Canadian Pork Council has already had informal discussion with Canadian trade officials.

Heckman said the door is open for the U.S. National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), the organization at the heart of the recent Supreme Court case, to challenge Prop 12 again. He said he was waiting for a full debrief from American producers to clarify their next move.

In a May 11 statement, NPPC president Scott Hays signaled the group’s intent to keep fighting.

“Allowing state overreach will increase prices for consumers and drive small farms out of business, leading to more consolidation,” said Hays. “We are still evaluating the court’s full opinion to understand all the implications.”

Enforcement of Prop 12 standards for sow housing begins July 1.

When Dahl spoke with the Co-operator on May 15, he said he didn’t know how soon Manitoba producers could expect to feel the effects of the law.

Prop 12 changes

Proposition 12 requires that breeding pigs must be able to turn around freely, lie down, stand up and fully extend their limbs. It stipulates that sows must have at least 24 square feet of floor space, about the size of a double bed. Some exceptions are made, such as the five days prior to farrowing and while the sow is nursing.

The current industry standard is 14 to 20 square feet, according to a 2021 report from Dutch banking and financial services company Rabobank.

In Manitoba, producers must follow the National Farm Animal Care Council’s code of practice if they want to send pigs to federally inspected processing plants.

Those codes require any barns built after 2014 to house sows in groups, with individual stalls allowed for 28 days after breeding. Stalls must allow sows to stand without simultaneously touching both sides, lie down without their udders entering adjacent stalls, stand up without touching the top bars and stand without touching both ends of the stall.

In 2014, the NFACC proposed that all barns be transitioned to open sow housing by 2024. In 2020, after a five-year review, the group proposed to push that deadline back to 2029. The board failed to reach a consensus on that proposal, however, and it has been “temporarily set aside pending NFACC undertaking a full review of its governance processes,” the organization’s website states.

About 60 per cent of sows in Manitoba live in group housing, Dahl said, but they may not meet California’s standards.

Next steps

Earlier this spring, at the Manitoba Pork Council’s annual general meeting, representatives of the Iowa Pork Producers Association and the Minnesota Pork Producers Association told local producers that American farms can probably supply California with enough compliant pork. They said more barns will need to be upgraded if other states apply the same standards.

Seaboard Corp., the third-biggest U.S. pig producer, is prepared to supply California customers with “limited supplies of compliant pork” starting July 1, said company spokesperson David Eaheart.

The firm, which runs Seaboard Foods, converted a portion of its farms and plant operations to meet Prop 12 requirements before the Supreme Court’s decision, Eaheart said.

Pork groups argued that enforcing Prop 12 would lead to higher costs for what has typically been an affordable protein.

In 2018, when the issue was put to a ballot vote in California, voters were told the measure would “likely result in an increase in prices for eggs, pork and veal,” according to the election’s official voter information guide.

The summary of the proposition also warned it would lead to a small reduction in the state’s revenue and would increase oversight costs by up to $10 million annually.

Nearly two-thirds of Californians voted for the proposition, state records show. However, the proposition was passed pre-pandemic and before recent inflation spikes, Heckman said.

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Cattle futures were mixed, with live cattle easing on weakening trades in the cash market. Feeder cattle contracts were supported by falling corn prices.

The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Thursday morning that beef export sales in the week ended May 4 totaled 16,600 tonnes, down from 20,100 tonnes a week earlier.

Weekly pork export sales dropped to 30,000 tonnes from 49,000 tonnes. Sales to China, the world’s top consumer of pork, dropped to 5,600 tonnes from 14,200 tonnes.

Signs of lacklustre demand from China despite the end of the country’s zero-tolerance policies to combat COVID-19 have weighed on pork prices throughout the spring. Most actively traded June lean hog futures fell 0.3 cent to settle at 83.875 cents/lb. (all figures US$).

August feeder cattle gained 0.925 cent to 226.075 cents/lb., breaking through its 30-day and 10-day moving averages.

June live cattle dipped 0.05 cent to 162.95 cents/lb.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday preserved a California law banning the sale of pork in America’s most-populous state from pigs kept in tightly confined spaces, rejecting an industry challenge claiming that the voter-backed animal welfare measure impermissibly regulates out-of-state farmers.

— Mark Weinraub is a Reuters commodities correspondent in Chicago.

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The justices voted 5-4 to uphold a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation seeking to invalidate the law, but they were divided in their reasons for doing so.

The industry had argued that the measure violated a U.S. Constitution provision called the Commerce Clause that courts have interpreted as empowering the federal government – not states – to regulate interstate commerce.

“While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list,” wrote conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the court’s main opinion.

The measure, approved by voters as a 2018 ballot initiative called Proposition 12, bars sales in California of pork, veal and eggs from animals whose confinement failed to meet certain minimum space requirements.

The law mandates pig confinement spaces large enough to enable the animals to turn around, lie down, stand up and extend their limbs.

The pork industry groups argued that the law violated the Constitution by forcing farmers in other states to change their practices in order to sell pork in California, a lucrative market. The Canadian Pork Council signed onto an amicus argument filed last June in support of the U.S. pork groups.

Kitty Block, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, praised the ruling.

“We won’t stop fighting until the pork industry ends its cruel, reckless practice of confining mother pigs in cages so small they can’t even turn around. It’s astonishing that pork industry leaders would waste so much time and money on fighting this commonsense step to prevent products of relentless, unbearable animal suffering from being sold in California,” said Block, whose group intervened in the case to defend Proposition 12.

Scott Hays, president of the National Pork Producers Council and a Missouri pork producer, voiced disappointment with the Supreme Court’s decision.

“Allowing state overreach will increase prices for consumers and drive small farms out of business, leading to more consolidation,” Hays said.

Seaboard Corp., the third-biggest U.S. pig producer, is prepared to supply California customers with “limited supplies of compliant pork” starting on July 1, company spokesperson David Eaheart said.

The company, which runs Seaboard Foods, converted a portion of its farms and plant operations to meet California’s requirements before the Supreme Court’s decision, Eaheart said.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a partial dissent that was joined by fellow conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, as well as liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The four said they would have allowed the challengers to the California law to pursue their claim in the lower courts.

“In my view, petitioners plausibly allege a substantial burden against interstate commerce,” Roberts wrote.

California farms collectively are only a small part of the US$26 billion-a-year U.S. pork industry. The size of cages used at U.S. pig farms is humane and necessary for animal safety, according to the industry, which asserts that California’s law gives the state unwarranted influence over the pork sector.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration sided with the pork producers in the case, saying that states cannot ban products that pose no threat to public health or safety due to philosophical objections.

Proposition 12 set the required space for breeding pigs, or sows, at 24 square feet. The current industry standard is between 14 and 20 square feet, according to a 2021 report from Dutch banking and financial services company Rabobank.

The Supreme Court took up the case after the San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judge’s decision to throw out the pork industry challenge.

— Reporting for Reuters by Nate Raymond in Boston and Andrew Chung in New York; additional reporting John Kruzel in Washington and Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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Montreal-based Saputo announced last Thursday it has construction underway on a new $240 million cut-and-wrap cheese plant in the Milwaukee suburb of Franklin, to be up and running at capacity by the third quarter of 2025 (all figures Cdn$).

When the new plant is ready, Saputo said it expects to transfer other packaging operations there. To that end, the company said it plans to close its plant at Big Stone City, S.D., about 200 km south of Fargo, in the third quarter of next fiscal year, and another Wisconsin plant at Green Bay in its 2025 Q3.

Also, another Saputo plant at Tulare, California previously slated to be shut down will now get $75 million in renovations to convert to string cheese packaging, to be up and running at capacity by Q3 of 2025.

After that, a Los Angeles-area string cheese packaging plant, at South Gate, will be closed and its work transferred to the converted Tulare site, about 300 km north.

Saputo said the investment at Tulare “will help support the company’s growth ambitions and sustain its leadership position in the string cheese product category.”

In all, Saputo said, while the new Franklin plant alone is expected to take on about 600 people, about 720 positions will be affected in the pending plant closures. Affected workers will be offered opportunities to relocate to other Saputo plants and, if no spots are available, the workers will get “severance and outplacement support.”

The projects announced last Thursday “aim to solidify our ability to meet current and future customer demand and further improve our cost structure,” said Saputo CEO Lino Saputo said in a release.

Improving its capacity to produce goods in its higher-margin value-added categories will “fuel our aspirations to further enhance our value proposition as a high-quality, low-cost processor” in the U.S., he said.

The plant consolidations and investments are expected to improve Saputo’s bottom line by up to $74 million per year ($55 million after taxes) by the end of its fiscal 2027, the company said.

Saputo’s U.S. dairy division makes, sells and distributes a “vast assortment” of cheeses, including mozzarella, American-style and specialty cheeses, among other products. In its fiscal 2022, ending last March 31, U.S. revenue made up 43 per cent of the company’s total.

During that fiscal year, the company said in its annual report, its U.S. dairy division was its “most challenged platform,” up against “substantial commodity volatility” as well as “labour, inflation and supply chain pressures.”

The company’s U.S. arm in fiscal 2022 booked gross revenue of $6.41 billion, up from $6.12 billion the previous year, but the U.S. arm’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) came in at $288 million for 2022, down from $567 million.

Saputo’s U.S. sector has since booked improved revenue and EBITDA in each of its first and second quarters for fiscal 2023, for combined EBITDA of $199 million on revenue of $4.1 billion, up from $163 million on $3.039 billion in the year-earlier first half. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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