The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in an email on April 8 that new admissibility requirements for commodities originating from Greece have been set up in CFIA’s Automated Import Reference System (AIRS).

WHY IT MATTERS: Data from Greece’s tourism industry show over 300,000 arrivals in that country from Canada in 2024 alone.

According to the World Organization for Animal Health, Greece began reporting cases of foot-and-mouth disease on March 15 with nine infected cattle at a farm on the island of Lesvos, marking the country’s first such cases since 1994. Its most recent cases, in sheep and one cow on the same island, were reported March 29.

Greece’s cases so far have all occurred on farms in the northern regions of that island, in the Aegean Sea off the west coast of Turkey. So far, 438 animals in total have been confirmed infected.

The findings make Greece the fifth European Union member country currently under foot-and-mouth restrictions from Canada. Hungary, Slovakia and Cyprus all reported cases last year, while Bulgaria is the lone EU member country “not usually considered free” of foot-and-mouth disease.

Germany regained disease-free status last month, while CFIA’s restrictions on Austria were lifted last September.

While findings of the disease in Greece are so far limited to Lesvos, Canada’s new restrictions apply to the entire country, unlike certain other nations such as Brazil, Argentina and Peru in which CFIA classifies some but not all provinces or states as free of foot-and-mouth disease.

What products are prohibited?

At-risk commodities covered by Canada’s import ban include live animals and germplasm; animal products and byproducts; uncooked meat and meat products; raw milk and milk products made from raw milk, such as unpasteurized cheese; unprocessed manure; laboratory material; blood products; livestock feed and equipment that has been in contact with affected animals; raw or unprocessed pet foods; raw hides, skins, wool, antlers, horns, hooves; and any other non-heat-treated products or byproducts from vulnerable animal species.

Species vulnerable to foot-and-mouth disease include hogs, cattle, bison, sheep, goats, camelids (llamas, alpacas) and cervids (deer, elk, moose) among others.

CFIA’s restrictions apply to any at-risk products dating as far back as 28 days before the first symptoms were detected in an affected country.

Foot-and-mouth disease, according to CFIA, is a viral disease characterized by symptoms including blister-like sores on the tongue and lips, in the mouth, on the teats and between the hooves; foot lesions, accompanied by acute lameness and reluctance to move; and loss of appetite or milk production. The virus can spread between animals through direct, indirect or airborne transmission.

Canada is free of the disease and has not reported any cases of the disease in livestock since 1952, when an outbreak in southeastern Saskatchewan is believed to have originated with a visitor from an infected farm in Germany, carrying the virus either on clothes or an infected sausage.

Advice for farmers visiting Greece

Canadians are still free to travel to Greece, but CFIA recommends they avoid visiting farms when doing so. Travellers who do visit farms should make sure clothes and footwear worn during those visits are free from soil or manure. Footwear should be cleaned and disinfected, and dry-cleaning of the clothes worn is recommended.

Travellers should also avoid contact with susceptible animals, including farm and zoo animals and wildlife, for 14 days after returning to Canada.

For farmers who travel to Greece, contact with farm animals is not recommended for five days upon return to Canada, when “strict personal decontamination measures” are applied to clothes and footwear, CFIA says.

Travellers also must declare all food products upon arrival in Canada. Generally, CFIA says, meat and dairy products from foot-and-mouth infected countries won’t be allowed, but foods that are “cooked, shelf-stable, commercially prepared and hermetically sealed” may be.

The post Canada blocks meats, dairy from Greece over foot-and-mouth disease appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The technology, called EpiHerd, is now being piloted in Canada after a Manitoba dairy farmer reached out to Antler Bio seeking solutions for his crossbred herd — animals that often fall outside the scope of traditional genomic testing programs.

Antler Bio, founded in 2020, uses blood testing and advanced gene expression analysis to identify environmental and management factors, including stressors and nutritional deficiencies, that could be affecting herd health and performance.

While conventional genomic tools examine the genes an animal carries, EpiHerd focuses on epigenetics: how active those genes are and how they respond to the animal’s environment.

“We measure about 27,000 individual genes, not just whether they’re present, but how active they are,” says Andrew Lessey, chief operating officer for Antler Bio. “That allows us to see what signals the animal’s biology is giving us about what’s holding it back or where it may be deficient.”

The company collects blood samples from about 10 per cent of a herd. Those samples are analyzed alongside a farm’s production and health data, and using artificial intelligence and machine learning, EpiHerd develops practical recommendations for farmers to implement.

From horse racing to the dairy barn

Antler Bio traces its roots to the horse racing industry, but co-founders Maria Jensen and Nathalie Conte soon realized the larger opportunity was in livestock, where improvements in efficiency and animal welfare could have broader impact.

Within 18 months of launch, the company secured initial funding and completed a proof-of-concept study identifying key biological markers in dairy cattle linked to health and productivity.

Today, Antler Bio works with more than 130 dairy farms across five countries, with strong adoption in Finland and growing interest in the U.K. and Scandinavia.

Early results suggest the company’s insights can translate into measurable on-farm improvements.

In one example Lessey cites, gene expression analysis revealed several management issues including selenium and vitamin D imbalances, dehydration signals and underlying metabolic stress.

“The farmer made changes around improving selenium and vitamin D, changed feed sources to improve metabolic stress and added more water facilities — changes that were relatively straightforward,” Lessey says. “The outcome was a significant uplift in milk yield that translated into an additional €30,000 (about C$47,000) per year in profit on 100 head.”

The improvements also extended to animal health. Mastitis dropped by 95 per cent and ketosis and milk fever disappeared, reducing veterinary costs and production losses.

Adapting human diagnostics for livestock

The technology itself is not entirely new. Similar gene expression testing has been widely used in human medicine, particularly in advanced cancer diagnostics. Antler Bio’s innovation lies in adapting the approach for livestock and integrating it with farm management data.

It was through Innovate U.K.’s Global Business Innovation Program that Antler Bio landed a spot in a recent cohort of the Cultivator, powered by Conexus, incubator in Saskatchewan and started making connections to Canadian agriculture — including the Manitoba dairy farm where they’re launching their first North American project.

Looking for Canadian early adopters

Although rapid expansion into Canada isn’t in the immediate plans, Lessey says the company hopes to recruit a small number of early-adopter farms to build local data and validate the technology under Canadian conditions. Interested dairy farmers are encouraged to contact the company directly.

Long term, Antler Bio hopes its platform will help dairy farmers worldwide improve herd health, profitability and environmental performance.

“If farmers can produce the same amount of milk with fewer animals and the same inputs, that’s good for the farm business and it also reduces the environmental footprint,” Lessey says.

Although currently focused on dairy, the platform could also be adapted for other livestock species or even companion animals in the future.

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The relentless marketing, alternately promoting weight loss drugs and foods that lean toward making us fat, wasn’t aimed at the elite athletes strutting their stuff on the world stage. It’s a safe bet they didn’t achieve the peak of human fitness on a diet of pizza and french fries. It’s equally doubtful they require injections of the GLP-1 class of drugs to manage their weight.

Nope, those commercials are aimed at the couch potatoes back home, subjecting us to both temptation and a shortcut to redemption as we bear witness to these feats of human endurance.

These athletes deserve our admiration and respect, but to be fair to the rest of us, most working stiffs don’t have the time, the drive or the resources to devote full-time to the pursuit of extreme fitness.

So we’re left swinging between food-culture extremes, the effects of which filter back through the food chain to the farm. Consider for a moment how the food industry is twisting itself into a pretzel trying to understand how these drugs will affect consumer demand.

Firstly, these products reduce appetites, which means people eat less — so much so that it’s more difficult for them to meet their nutritional needs. It’s also now known that one of the unintended consequences of rapid weight loss is a loss of muscle.

Lately, the focus has shifted to how to support consumers in their post-GLP-1 phase as users move away from the drugs due to factors such as costs or side effects. Recent studies are indicating the weight they lost bounces back four times faster than weight lost through traditional diet and exercise.

That has shifted attention to creating low-calorie, nutrient-dense foods, with a particular emphasis on protein.

How does this affect farmers’ bottom line? Some analysts have pointed to the protein craze as one reason record-high beef prices haven’t had the same dampening effect on demand that they might have in the past.

It’s also creating some longer-term shifts in pricing and production.

A recent Farm Credit Canada analysis outlined how this plays out for dairy farmers, to cite one example. A decade ago, they were told they needed to produce milk with a higher proportion of butterfat, which led to shifts in pricing, genetics and feeding strategies to accommodate.

Now, demand is tipping back to protein, leading marketing boards to once again adjust pricing formulas to incentivise a higher ratio of protein in the milk supply. Change comes at a cost, and those costs eventually find their way into the price of food.

“Does this protein craze have staying power? It will take years and successive generations of breeding to shift the herd towards higher-protein-lower butterfat-producing animals,” FCC economist Graeme Crosbie asked in his article.

That’s a good question. Looking back over the countless extreme approaches grabbing headlines in recent generations — the Atkins Diet, keto, low-fat, high-fat, cabbage, carnivore, meatless, vegan, California, intermittent fasting, anti-ultra processed — to name a few — many have caused food-sector pivots, but ultimately, most had limited staying power.

Remember the Atkins Diet of the early 2000s? Industry statistics show that at its peak, pasta consumption dropped eight per cent and bread by up to 40 per cent.

Meanwhile, food manufacturers responded with a major investment in hundreds of low-carb food products, many of which flourished only briefly.

The jury is still out on the plant-based protein craze, touted as healthier for people and the planet. However, many of the early plant-based products are languishing in the marketplace because of their high cost and blah taste. That industry is reportedly regrouping in a bid to up the flavour profile and rebalance costs.

There are already signs that the GLP-1 drugs are losing their shine. They no doubt still have a place but many are discovering they aren’t the panacea those advertisements make them out to be.

Farmers busy with the day-to-day business of growing food ingredients can’t afford to farm the fads. But it’s still wise to monitor these changing consumer behaviours to find the common threads — such as protein, nutrition and a move away from ultra-processed foods.

Understanding how the middle ground between the different extremes might be shifting gives farmers the upper hand when making strategic investments in their operations.

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That recent history of increased access is why Dairy Farmers of Canada is looking to the federal government to hold the line at any more access to the market during the upcoming CUSMA review process.

“There seems to be a fair bit of attention being paid to Canadian dairy, for some reason,” said David Wiens, president of the Dairy Farmers of Canada, who farms in Manitoba.

“It’s interesting that in light of the trade balance being in favour of the U.S., that this keeps coming up.”

The American administration has claimed a lack of fairness in the dairy relationship between the two countries, but has not, to this point, targeted the dismantling of the supply management system.

The concern is around the administration of Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs), which help manage how products are imported into a country.

Canada originally allocated its U.S. import TRQs to domestic processors, but a 2021 U.S. appeal to the tribunal that oversees CUSMA disputes ruled in the U.S.’s favour, and the processor pool was changed.

The U.S. continues to have concerns with TRQ administration, but after a second appeal in 2022, the tribunal ruled in favour of Canada’s updated TRQ system.

“Most industry feels that there’s quite a good trade arrangement between Canada and the U.S., and they don’t want to see that disrupted in a major way. And that sentiment is on both sides of the border,” he said.

Economists Aleks Schaefer of Oklahoma State University and Chris Wolf of Cornell University completed a study published last year showing Canadian imports of U.S. dairy products rose from $524.9 million in 2021 to $877 million in 2024.

Wiens says trade agreements aren’t perfect, “but they’re something”.

“The government has very much supported that there will be no further concession.”

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To address this, paneists Larissa Hamel of Harmony Holsteins, Kristen Stevenson of Pendora Dairy Ltd., Dr. Jodie Wallace of Anderson Farms Silverstream Holsteins, and Rob Kirkconnell of Valleykirk Farms shared their insights on raising healthy, thriving calves at the Grey Bruce Farmers Week Beef Day in January.

WHY IT MATTERS: Investing in early nutrition boosts herd efficiency, profitability, and longevity, leading to better-performing cows, especially when combined with genetics.

Each panellist represented operations varying in scale, ranging from 60 to more than 400 cows, technology and management, but agreed on some universal priorities:

• Colostrum quality is as critical as volume.
• Prevention-first health programs
• Clean air and housing are key.
• Nutrition equals performance and shouldn’t be limited.
• Consistency reduces risk, and measurement drives improvement.
• The end goal is building a healthy, efficient, high-performing milk cow.

Building on these shared priorities, each producer reported delivering three to four litres of colostrum within two hours of birth. Delivery methods and colostrum brix percentage targets ranged from 25 to 30 per cent, slightly above the traditional standard of 24 per cent.

Dr. Wallace said modern research suggests 300 g IgG at 24 per cent Brix per four litres — well above older standards, but she aims for 28 per cent Brix or higher, enriching as needed.

“We’re pretty stringent on taking a lot of feed samples and working with a nutritionist to ensure high-quality colostrum,” Wallace explained. Her calves are free choice bottle-fed, so if a newborn wants to drink five litres, she’s not complaining.

Stevenson, who milks 400 cows through a 32-stall rotary parlour, puts an emphasis on testing each cow’s colostrum to ensure a minimum of 27 per cent Brix is met.

She initiated an enrichment program in the summer of 2025 following a cryptosporidium outbreak. The change all but eliminated the issue, and they achieved a pre-weaning death rate of 1.5 per cent.

On the economics of prevention, Stevenson cited research showing that one case of scours can cost up to $600 in a heifer’s first lactation – money she believes is better spent on prevention.

Passive transfer protection is essential, so panellists prioritize fresh maternal colostrum but also use a mix of frozen or powder-enhanced colostrum to achieve a minimum Brix of 25-30 per cent.

Immunization support

In line with the saying ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,’ a robust dry-cow vaccination program, including Scourguard and J-Vac, is considered standard by most, along with clean, well-managed calving and newborn environments.

Each bolsters calves’ early immune support with a First Defense bolus, an intranasal, like Inforce, VitaFerst Care, navel iodine spray and a coat once dry. Kirkconnell’s protocol includes selenium.

Targeted calf feeding ensures strong, consistent growth well past the weaning stage, with early-life calories translating into stronger heifers and higher lifetime milk production.

Each producer follows a slightly different milk replacer transition program, but, on average, it involves six to eight litres of milk replacer in week one, with unlimited calf starter and water access, before doubling in week two, until a step-down weaning program is initiated from day 57 to 70.

Stevenson invested in an on-farm pasteurizer and bottle sterilizer, noting that it eliminates human error, provides a consistent milk temperature, and ensures that bottles are always clean.

In 2021, Kirkconnell invested in a robotic bottle feeder, which was a “game-changer” for consistency and labour efficiency, especially through the weaning process.

Old school

On the 110-cow Anderson Farms Silverstream Holsteins, Wallace runs a data-driven, low-tech, unconventional system that relies on detail-oriented staff, joking that even their brix refractometer is optical, not digital.

Wallace uses far-off and close-up calving packs for her closed groups, including a dedicated calving corner to reduce metabolic disease, and a “cuddle box” where cows can lick and bond with a calf while she’s milked at the calving pen and the calf receives colostrum.

The cuddle box easily transports the calf to the calf barn, a former tie-stall barn converted in 2014, which includes a newborn “calf sauna” to dry coats, before being paired or grouped in threes. Wallace observed that paired calves were calmer, ate more and were easier to manage.

“(We) went four years straight with zero treatments and zero loss, and that’s for diarrhea and pneumonia,” she said. “We keep doing that, and we think it’s repeatable.”

The $150,000 barn conversion included positive-pressure ventilation, a heated centre and outer alley for humidity and draft control, with housing two feet off the outer walls, bedded daily and cleaned twice weekly, resulting in a 1,100-kilogram increase in first-lactation milk production.

Calves are fed free-choice acidified milk (pH 4.2) through continuously agitated tanks at transition, allowing the animals to regulate their own intake, while also providing free-choice hay at week one, which eliminated cross-suckling in the calf barn. However, she noted some cases in the eight to 12-month pen when pre-breeding or breeding heifers are under stress or overcrowded.

Wallace runs research trials, including weighing calves at birth, weaning, and sale, noting they routinely double birth weight by 23 days, with average daily gains between 1.17 and 1.46 kg, adding that the calf that doubled its birth weight wasn’t even the breed average for feed efficiency. She said that, with increasingly tight margins, the way to boost profitability is to improve the efficiency of gains and the quality of dairy animals.

“When we look at the new standards to double in 56 (days), I’m pretty sure we can all do better,” she said. “If you want to do better, you have to do better than the average, and we didn’t know (our benchmark) until we measured.”

Wallace’s calves undergo drastic weaning, which she doesn’t recommend broadly, but said the animals are already consuming two to three kilograms of grain and hay when the milk valves are closed and show no signs of stress.

Concluding the discussion, Kirkconnell said he plans to increase his Brix; Stevenson aims to improve tracking of birth and weaning weights; Wallace intends to move paper calf records to a spreadsheet; and Hamel will look into calf pairing.

“As the industry changes, we focus more on raising a milk cow, instead of just raising a calf,” said Hamel. “I think that doubling up and not having single calves is probably where our industry is headed.”

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Products such as cottage cheese grew by 32 per cent and yogurt by seven per cent in 2025, according to NielsenIQ, as consumers sought more protein-options.

WHY IT MATTERS: Pricing changes require precise management on dairy farms to maximize profit.

The change in protein demand means the producer-run organizations that manage the pricing and flow of milk in Canada’s supply management system are having to move from a butterfat-rich payment system to one with more emphasis on protein.

Dairy farmers buy quota based on kilograms of butterfat produced per day, so if they produce less butterfat, they will have to ship more litres of milk per day to fill their quota. However, if they produce more protein, they could end up with higher pay.

Canadian butter stocks have been rising over the past year, also resulting in the need to realign the ratio between butterfat and other milk solids, including protein. The Canadian Dairy Commission reports in its November report that total butter stocks were 35,216 tonnes, which is 4,789 tonnes higher than in November 2024.

The P5, which includes the five eastern Canadian provinces other than Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Western Milk Pool, which includes the provinces west of Ontario, are taking different approaches.

In the P5, “the high protein products, fluid milk, yogurt, for sure, and cheese, have seen incredible growth,” says Kristin Benke, chief business and supply chain officer with Dairy Farmers of Ontario. “We’ve seen that sort of increase in demand from the market side, which is outpacing the increase in demand for butterfat at this point.”

When protein demand increases quickly and butterfat demand growth doesn’t match that of protein, market changes are needed at the farm.

Jeremy Wiebe, a dairy farmer in Chilliwack, B.C., and chair of the Western Milk Pool, says the increase in protein demand is also being seen in the western provinces, and that demand will be enhanced when a processing plant being expanded by Vitalus in British Columbia starts taking more. milk. It’s focusing on high-protein dairy products.

The two parts of the country have different approaches to milk pricing. Here’s what it means for farmer milk cheques:

The P5 approach

Farmers in the P5 get paid on two tiers, with payments in tier two generally being the most profitable, as producers are incentivized to deliver milk that meets market demands.

More value, $3 per kilogram more, is being put on protein in the second tier, encouraging farmers to produce a solids-non-fat to butterfat ratio that’s more than two. That also means that the price paid for tier one protein will decrease by 18 cents per kg.

Farmers who hit a ratio of 2.2 will be paid the highest for their milk, although on-farm factors will determine if that’s the most profitable.

Benke says the policy change on pricing brings what farmers are paid for milk back to what it was in 2023. Butterfat production has risen since then, as farmers responded to that pricing change.

She says this pricing change aims to move butterfat production down to where it was around 2023 and 2024.

There are likely more changes ahead to pricing policy, says Benke.

The new P5 pricing is in place as of Jan. 1, 2026.

The Western Milk Pool approach

Wiebe also signaled that the changes made by the Western Milk Pool could be the first step in changes emphasizing less fat and more protein.

In 2017, the milk pool changed the pricing ratio to farmers being paid 85 per cent on butterfat, 10 per cent on protein and five per cent on other solids in the milk.

“In 2017, we were actually short cream,” he said. “Now it’s nine years later and we have this huge demand for protein starting.”

Wiebe says the Western Milk Pool isn’t yet short of protein, but the Vitalus expansion at Abbotsford and global trends point to more demand.

As of April 1, farmers in the west will be paid at 70 per cent for butterfat, 25 per cent for protein and five per cent for other solids.

The western milk boards have been discussing the change since their fall meetings, so farmers will have had time to manage the change.

What does this mean on farms?

Dairy farmers will have to figure out how new changes to milk pricing affect their profitability.

That becomes a complex mix of managing feed, genetics and barn capacity, but the data to inform decisions can be challenging to calculate.

Cattleytics, a Canadian dairy software, data and analytics company, has created a free calculator for farmers in the P5. The calculator can be found on the Cattleytics website.

According to Dairy Farmers of Ontario, the sweet spot for farmers will be at a solids that aren’t fat to butterfat ratio of 2.2 to one. However, meeting that exact ratio on a farm every day is challenging.

“I think that’s a very difficult calculation for a lot of people to do,” says Shari van de Pol, CEO of Cattleytics. Farmers will see that they get paid much more for their tier one milk, but the tier two milk is where they can make extra money.

As of January milk payments to dairy farmers, protein in tier two will be worth $3 per kg more and protein in tier one will be worth 18 cents less per kg.

“The takeaway is that if you’re not making quota, you just want to fill tier one, because you get paid the most for that. But if you’re able to make your quota and you’re able to ship the milk, filling that tier two milk is just money on the table that you can get,” she says.

If a producer’s solids-not-fat ratio is around two currently, it likely means butterfat percentage is high, and that’s where there are opportunities to lower butterfat and get more for protein.

Farmers who feed palm fat, which helps cows stay healthier, especially around reproduction, and will increase butterfat percent, can save some of their feed costs by reducing the amount of palm fat in the ration.

“If you’re going quite heavy to maximize that butterfat, that’s no longer the best strategy,” says van de Pol.

She says farmers should consult with their nutritionists to determine the optimal amount of fat in their ration.

She did some figuring and saw how complex the decision will be for farmers to determine the most profitable way to meet the new payment system. To make the process easier she created that calculator which takes into account numerous variables on farms, and allows farmers to change the values of their butterfat and protein levels and the levels of fat they’re feeding to see which SNF ratio makes the most sense for their farm.

Once a farmer exceeds the 2.2 ratio, that means they will get no bonus for their protein. That means farmers are targeting closer to 2.18 or 2.16, so it gives them a buffer for the natural variation that comes with managing cows, especially through seasons.

“If you’re looking for a target, targeting 2.0 means that, for most people, there’s money left on the table.”

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“I think it’s going to be a very fraught negotiation process,” he said.

Meredith described U.S. President Donald Trump as volatile, unpredictable and transactional.

“He doesn’t see any deal as a win-win for anybody. Anything the other side gains, he perceives as a loss,” he said.

Meredith’s comments came from a recent webinar from the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute and RealAgriculture.

WHY IT MATTERS: Uncertain trade policy, tariffs and supply chain disruptions top many farmer lists of concern as U.S.-Canada relations enter the second year of a more protectionist U.S. administration in the White House.

Meridith believes Trump will use the CUSMA negotiations to get concessions out of Canada, whether that be on broader issues such as sovereignty or CUSMA-specific issues such as supply management.

“I do expect that there will be a series of outlandish demands or claims or requests that will populate the discussion,” said Meredith.

CUSMA is an agreement that in the past provided a great deal of certainty with clear rules of engagement.

However, he said Trump is not constrained by the norms of multilateral agreements or institutions. Any agreement reached between the U.S., Canada and Mexico will be as volatile or uncertain as the president’s behaviour.

“That makes me very, very concerned about the likelihood of a solid outcome of CUSMA,” said Meredith.

Supply management questions

He thinks there will be “very substantial” concessions in U.S. market access for dairy.

Desmond Sobool, deputy chief economist with Farm Credit Canada, did not get that impression based on a report that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) sent to the U.S. Congress.

“It didn’t seem like it was a blow-up of the dairy system,” he said.

Sobool said the USTR appeared to be pushing for “tweaks” to supply management, primarily in the form of increased access to the Canadian market for U.S. dairy products.

Francis Drouin, senior adviser with Capital Hill Group, was encouraged by the letter that 124 national and state farm organizations in the U.S. sent to the USTR calling for a 16-year renewal of CUSMA, noting that there has been a tripling of the value of agri-food trade with the three countries between 2005 and 2023.

“Without the economic might that this trilateral agreement affords, farmer incomes would be harmed, as the industry would be saddled with additional and burdensome costs related to transportation and compliance measures,” stated the letter.

“Without the certainty guaranteed by USMCA (the U.S. term for the deal), agribusinesses and family farms would face undependable markets and weakened global competitiveness.”

Drouin said it is a relief to see such solid support for the agreement at the ground level, where agriculture groups are pleading with the USTR to leave CUSMA untouched.

“That’s the positive news I see, despite the rhetoric and the riffraff between our politicians,” he said.

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The news came after disease investigations in the Netherlands, according to a Jan. 23 article published on Science.org. Officials found antibodies — evidence of prior infection — in a dairy cow’s milk. Officials thought to test cattle after a dead cat on a farm in the northern province of Friesland was found to have been killed by the H5N1 bird flu virus.

Veterinarians collected blood and milk samples from cattle. They did not find the virus itself, although the antibody finding suggested a recent flu contraction in that animal.

So far, there’s been no evidence cattle from other farms have been infected, the Netherlands agriculture minister said.

WHY IT MATTERS: Dairy cases of bird flu spread rapidly through the U.S. starting in 2024, infecting animals and leveling an economic hit to American dairy farms. Canada has not found any cases in its dairy herd so far.

Canada continues to be spared from dairy bird flu, despite proximity of the U.S. where, at one point in 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did a survey in which one in five retail milk samples sampled found killed remnants of the virus.

Containment efforts have since gained considerable ground. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has reported no new cattle cases in the last 30 days.

But the recent Dutch infection is a reminder that bovine bird flu isn’t flapping its way into the history books just yet.

Cases haven’t quite cut off in the U.S. — there was one in Wisconsin as recently as December, although summer 2025 saw a distinct slowdown. In total, the U.S. outbreak has spanned 1,084 cases across 19 states since March 2024.

“It was quiet over the summer, which is expected with influenza viruses. This started to change in the fall, again this is typical for influenza viruses,” says Stacey Schultz-Cherry, of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., in an email to the Co-operator.

Schultz-Cherry and her fellow investigators are learning more about the virus and how it mutates. The HPAI strains in question — belonging to avian flu clade 2.3.4.4b — appear to differ from other bird flu types in their ability to infect and replicate in respiratory and mammary cells from cows and other species.

“The reasons appear to be a mix of changes in the viruses as well as what happens to the cells during infection,” she says.

“For example, our studies suggest that the bovine strains rapidly kill the respiratory, but not mammary epithelial cells. We are trying to better understand why this is happening.”

The research has split off into several avenues, including how humans are infected and how immune history to other kinds of influenza may protect people if exposed to the new bird flu strains.

Could have been worse

Bovine bird flu’s footprint has been sizable, but it could have been far worse, says University of Guelph veterinary professor Shayan Sharif.

The main reasons it didn’t, Sharif said, is a credit to the U.S. veterinarians and agencies who identified, studied and contained the virus as securely as possible. However, he added, it may have been a miracle it was discovered in the first place. Dairy cattle in the southern U.S. had been getting sick for some time before anyone thought to test for bird flu.

“I don’t know if it was serendipity that they connected clinical science in dairy cows to HPAI, because that would not have been he first thing that would come to anyone’s mind, because what they saw wasn’t anything very specific for a disease,” Sharif noted.

“What they saw was that cows were experiencing lack of appetite, dropping their milk production (and the) milk looked funny.”

Sharif calls the virus “unique” and — strong containment protocols by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) aside — he still wonders why it never slipped across the Canada-U.S. border to Canadian dairy cattle.

Wild birds are a known vector of the disease. Such migratory birds don’t recognize borders and, depending on species, travel back and forth between the U.S. and Canada on a biannual basis.

“It became something that was predominantly present in U.S. flyways and it seems to have been something really specifically in the U.S., because there is no mention of it (infecting dairy cattle) in any other parts of the globe (or) in Canada,” said Sharif — at least until the evidence from the Netherlands was found.

“It wasn’t because we didn’t look for it hard enough. We did actually look for it very carefully, but it was nowhere to be found,” he said.

Key bird flu discoveries

Sharif also commends USDA, APHIS and others involved in the response for quickly identifying risk factors, including possible animal-to-animal transmission vectors such as cow-to-cow, cow-to-calf and cows to other animals, such as barn cats and birds.

To name one example, they learned it could be spread from cow to cow through milking machines and other dairy barn equipment.

“That was, I would say, one of the best sets of studies that were done in the U.S. that led to the discovery that the virus can be spread from cow to cow,” Sharif says.

Transmission from cows to humans was also determined to be a low-level possibility, although it was reported in those exposed to dairy cattle and other livestock.

“It also became clear that humans that are in contact with the virus usually catch the virus through their conjunctiva (pink eye),” explains Sharif.

“Some of them become infected through the respiratory system, but it’s primarily because of the conjunctiva in in their eyes that they become infected.

“So if you have PPE (personal protective equipment) — for example goggles, gloves, coveralls and so on — you could actually protect yourself.”

Another component — one confirmed by the CFIA during the outbreak — was the role of pasteurization in preventing the spread of the virus to human consumers.

”They did a whole series of studies looking at milk and its capacity for harbouring the virus and what can be done in order to reduce the risk of virus transmission through milk such as … through pasteurization,” Sharif notes.

Finally, he commends U.S. and Canadian authorities for taking a risk-based approach to the outbreak.

Canada’s response included tightening the border for U.S. dairy cattle. Livestock fairs and exhibitions were also cancelled in the U.S. and greater scrutiny was placed around animal movement to reduce spread.

“They did it based on risk assessment of what this could pose to both human and also animal populations. So I think overall, it was a job well done, and I think that in Canada, the CFIA has done a really good job to ensure that the virus doesn’t come to Canada,” Sharif says.

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The shift in focus to protein over butterfat increases the ratio paid for protein to 25 per cent of allocated funds, a 15 per cent increase, and decreases the ratio for butterfat to 70 per cent from 85 per cent.

“Always people think production is the driver. Forget about that,” Benoit Basillais, chief executive officer of the Canadian Dairy Commission, said at the 2025 Saskatchewan Dairy Conference in Saskatoon.

“The consumer decides what you produce and not the other way around. And we always forget that.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Protein from various plant and animal sources is an economic driver in the current food production space.

The CDC has noticed a continuing strength of demand, and even an increasing demand, as consumers seek choices for good protein. Yogurt and cheese are increasing in popularity because of their high protein content.

For 2024 and into 2025, every class of dairy product has grown, including cream, butter, yogurt and cheese.

Consumers are returning to higher fat milk and cream and adopting yogurt, which has brought big changes to the industry.

“This milk, which used to go to butterfat, is now going to yogurt. So the butter makers have to buy cream. They don’t have milk,” Basillais said.

“So big change in the industry in terms of who gets the milk, where gets the milk. So, if you wonder why some processors are worried, that’s a major impact for them. It impacts their relationship, their competitiveness.”

However, butterfat composition has increased, and the industry has been over-producing for three years. The CDC suspects stocks will continue to remain high in 2026.

Processors are continuing to buy, so there isn’t a worry there, but there’s a strong likelihood of dairy products going on sale.

The dairy industry has adjusted to meet the new consumer demands, but a number of concerns still remain.

Market access is at the top of the list, along with a weakening supply management system, the balance of the milk class system and Canadian milk exports, particularly with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement review soon underway.

“The U.S. has frequently portrayed Canada’s dairy system as part of an unfair trade landscape,” said David Wiens, president of Dairy Farmers of Canada.

“And in truth, the United States already enjoys substantial care free access to our market under the current agreement.”

“We’ll have to watch them very carefully that they don’t try to go down some of these avenues, no matter what form they take,” Wiens said.

“Concessions have a way at chipping away at Canada’s food sovereignty and security, and in many cases, the pieces that are given away are irreplaceable.”

Despite these concerns, there has been a silver lining in the trade battle with the United States: Canadians are being adamant in their choice of domestically produced food.

“Canadians care about buying homegrown foods, but they also want assurances that what they buy is produced with animal care, food safety and quality in mind,” Wiens said.

The DFC has also been advocating and working on interprovincial trade and finding ways to meet consumer environmental values.

The post Big changes ahead for dairy market appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

When Eicker asked why, the auctioneer said dairy farmers bring the worst animals he’s ever seen.

“And it ruins the auction. Buyers start looking at the ground, start talking to each other. It not only hurts the value of the dairy cows, it hurts the value of our beef cows.”

He said it seemed dairy producers didn’t realize their cattle were a food product and not waste.

WHY IT MATTERS: There’s value in marketing dairy cattle, not just their milk.

Eicker expressed his shock with this experience to the attendees of the Saskatchewan Dairy Conference in Saskatoon last fall.

He said the exchange was the beginning of a change in his thinking, one that brought him to believe there needs to be a better way to categorize cattle in the dairy industry.

“I don’t want people to ever use the word ‘cull’ again, OK?” he told the crowd.

“That auctioneer doesn’t want you to say (or) think they’re cull cows. He wants you to think they’re going for food. So we want to call that ‘market rate’ now.”

The phrasing changes the image that comes to mind to form a comparison between two cows.

Send to market younger

Dairy cows should be replaced when they’re younger and healthier to increase herd health and welfare, as well as increase market and milk profits, making them a “market” cow rather than a cull cow.

He recommends replacing the cow before it becomes the typical cull cow, which suffers from disease such as lameness or mastitis, and old age.

This idea goes against many notions that dairy producers have — such as older cows produce more milk, a need to make back raising costs and sustainability means lower replacement rates.

Eicker said these are misconceptions in the industry.

“More replacement gives us more milk and gives us greater sustainability,” he said.

“This is a tough thing for most people to do; it’s not what you’ve been told. You’ve been told that sustainability is higher if you have longer-lived cows. The math doesn’t support that.”

It simply means more heifers coming into the herd and less reliance on the cows that are next to being replaced and only slightly above the sick, lame and open category that is the first to go.

In addition, well-raised heifers will more than make up for what a producer may perceive as a loss because the average fully grown, adult-sized heifer will produce more milk in her first lactation than her second.

This is because in her full grown state, her dry matter intake over maintenance goes to milk production instead of growth. This provides her with more energy than her smaller, non-adult-sized counterparts.

What’s more, when the heifer is fully grown by its first freshening, that first lactation is larger and nearly identical to the second.

“Healthier cows have better fertility, have more heifers. More heifers, you can replace them earlier,” Eicker said.

“They’re in better body condition, less lameness. I think that’s how we should treat our cows. It’s not how long they live, it’s how well.”

“Let’s pretend we’re not just in the milk business. We’re also in the beef business. I want you people to think that’s what your real life is.”

Eicker proposes that producers should “scam” the quota system by getting many replacements and selling a quality meat animal. He said he doesn’t expect many to do that, or even consider it, but he suspects some might.

Beef packers will pay a three-to-one difference for quality cuts versus older meat that has to be “scraped off the bone.” By selling younger cattle, dairy producers can earn an advantage.

His proposal is to milk a cow for a lactation or two, secure a replacement heifer and then sell the market cow for meat.

Many studies state young Holstein meat is nearly identical to beef in taste and cutability. It also looks the same when packaged. This makes for an easy sell to the public, which Eiker said is all grocery retailers are concerned with.

“They don’t care very much about quality. You go in and almost everything’s identical, except when you go to the beef aisle. Then you can pick out each steak,” he said.

“But if they’re all Holstein, just what they look like, they’ll be the same size, the same cutability, the same market.”

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