Retire redundant regulations rapidly

Too many government farm regulations waste time and do nothing to improve health and safety of consumers, says a report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Farmers in Canada are hardest hit by regulations, an alphabet soup of rules including land-use restrictions, product labelling, food safety, border inspection, pesticides and data collection, said Virginia

Food industry wants say in new legislation

Food safety is a job for the companies that make food, and government should focus on setting nutrition and health standards and policing the industry. That’s the pitch being made by large processors as the federal government prepares to revamp food-safety legislation. “Let’s not lose perspective: We can’t regulate bugs out of our food,” said


“Natural” is their middle name

St. Claude dairy farmers Roger and Rachel Philippe were raising their male calves instead of disposing of them, but they weren’t happy with the prices they received when they sold them for slaughter. The couple, who has 200 milk cows, don’t use antibiotics or growth hormones and use feed regimes that produce quality meat. But

Uncertainty surrounds food safety legislation

The food industry wants meaningful consultations with the federal government while it’s preparing new food safety legislation, but so far is only being served promises of more advisory committee meetings. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz plans to introduce legislation in 2012 to overhaul the roles of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Health Canada, and the Public


Lessons For Canada From The Food Safety Modernization Act

FOOD LAWYER / OTTAWA The new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) signed into law by President Barack Obama on Jan. 4 is a model of how not to make food safety law. The Americans laboured long and hard and delivered a mouse. Under the FSMA, some powers of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are

Expert Panel Points To Major Problems

Major hurdles need to be overcome before a national beef traceability system can be introduced, members of an expert panel told beef producers meeting here Nov. 4. We have a bookend system, said Darcy Eddleston, chair of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency s board of directors, at the Manitoba Beef Producers annual general meeting. We


Briefs

Russia says meat imports deal clears obstacle to WTO MOSCOW/REUTERS Russia, aiming to join the World Trade Organization by the end of the year, has arrived at a compromise on meat imports, which have been a sticking point in final talks. Russia regulates meat imports with annual tariff quotas, under which certain volumes may be

CCA Gets Cash To Search For New And Improved TB Test

The federal government will fund the search for a new and improved diagnostic test for bovine tuberculosis, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has announced. The goal is to find a blood-based screening test for TB that is as good or better than the caudal fold test that has been in use since 1885, said Louis Desautels,


Keep Testing Suspicious Cattle For Bse, Cfia Urges

Cattle producers shouldn t let their guard down when it comes to testing for BSE just because the number of confirmed cases has dropped to less than a trickle, says a senior veterinarian at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Bachir Djillali, staff veterinarian for disease control, says it s still possible that a few more

In Brief… – for Sep. 15, 2011

Dryness dims Argentine wheat outlook:Much of Argentina s wheat belt is getting dry, with frosts hampering the healthy development of 2011-12 crops in some northern areas, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange said last week. Without moisture on surface soils, the outlook for wheat yields is gradually deteriorating in the western crop belt, the exchange said