The federal ag lender on Tuesday said it will offer an unsecured credit line of up to $500,000 with loan processing fees waived, “to help producers, agribusinesses and agri-food operations with their immediate cash flow needs.”

FCC said it’s making the offer to both new and existing customers who are “experiencing financial difficulties, including cash flow challenges, due to higher-than-average input costs and elevated interest rates.”

While the Bank of Canada has maintained its policy rate since January, FCC warned in a March outlook that “additional intervention” could still be required to get inflation to two per cent.

Elevated inflation and interest rates are expected to slow consumer spending and business investments, FCC said in March, adding that if the U.S. Federal Reserve continues raising its policy rate, that could lead to a lower Canadian dollar if the Bank of Canada extends its pause.

A global economic slowdown has also resulted in lower growth in Canadian ag and food export volume, FCC said at the time.

Cost pressures in the “current economic environment” are difficult to pass on, FCC said Tuesday, and that’s led to “tough financial circumstances for some operations.”

“While the current experiences of individual operations within the different agriculture and food sectors are varied, we hope those who identify with these challenges will use this credit line as an opportunity to work through their current position and build back stronger than before,” FCC chief operating officer Sophie Perreault said in a release.

FCC reiterated it can offer flexibility to customers who are going through “challenging business cycles and unpredictable circumstances” on a case-by-case basis, such as through flexible payment options, payment deferrals or credit lines.

For example, the lender said last Thursday it would consider additional short-term credit options, deferral of principal payments and/or other loan payment schedule amendments for customers in B.C.’s wine sector up against financial hardship following “prolonged cold temperatures” last winter that caused significant damage to wine grapevines.

FCC said May 16 it would also consider similar supports for maple syrup producers in Eastern Canada following an “unfavourable change in temperature this spring” that shortened the maple syrup harvest in most parts of the region.

“This limited harvest can cause financial challenges for farm operations – not to mention personal hardship and stress,” Manon Duguay, FCC’s vice-president of operations for Quebec and Atlantic Canada, said in a separate release at the time.

“We stand by our customers over the long term, helping them pursue opportunities and overcome challenges, and this year’s unfavourable temperature has certainly been challenging for many maple syrup business owners.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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A group of people in Quebec siphoned off maple syrup worth over $18 million from a reservoir and replaced it with water, before authorities discovered the robbery in 2012, in what has been dubbed the “great Canadian maple syrup heist.”

Richard Vallieres, who was among the 16 people arrested by police, was found guilty of fraud, trafficking and theft and sentenced to eight years in prison and fined over $9 million by the Quebec Superior Court.

Vallieres had successfully appealed that ruling, getting his fine lowered to about $1 million — the amount Vallieres says he profited from the robbery.

However, Canada’s Chief Supreme Court Justice Richard Wagner said that a court cannot limit the amount of a fine to the profit made by an offender and gave Vallieres 10 years to pay the fine or serve six years in prison.

Julie Giroux, the lawyer representing Vallieres, said her client was disappointed by the court’s decision to restore the initial amount imposed by the first judge and the gravity of having to bear such a substantial fine.

While the value of the stolen amber condiment was much higher, Vallieres sold the syrup for only $10 million, he told the Quebec Superior Court during his trial.

Canada is the largest exporter of maple products, and Quebec holds the world’s only strategic reserve of the sweet topping. Last year, maple syrup producers started releasing more than half of the reserve to ease a syrup squeeze as the pandemic boosted demand as more people started eating at home.

— Reporting for Reuters by Ismail Shakil in Bangalore; additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal.

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Federal Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough announced Nov. 27 the national commodity list (NCL) would be expanded to include seed corn, oil seed, grains and maple syrup — a move which allows farmers who produce those products to seek employees via SAWP.

The NCL helps determine eligibility and pay within the primary agricultural stream of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program. Access to SAWP and the TFW agricultural stream is limited to employers hiring workers for commodities specifically listed on the NCL.

SAWP is the stream most commonly used in Canadian primary agriculture; it provided 46,707 approved positions in 2019, with 12,858 coming from participating Caribbean countries and the rest from Mexico, the government said.

The NCL — which applies to both seasonal and non-seasonal work — already includes apiary products, fruits and vegetables, mushrooms, flowers; nursery-grown trees, greenhouse and nursery plants, pedigreed canola seed, sod, tobacco, beef and dairy cattle, swine, sheep, poultry and ducks, horses and mink among its other primary ag commodities.

SAWP employees and other TFWs were allowed to enter Canada in 2020 as essential workers under new federal limits on entry to Canada at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government reiterated in its announcement Nov. 27 that COVID outbreaks, which led to illnesses and several deaths among Canada’s TFW labour force during 2020, have since prompted moves to update the minimum requirements for employer-provided TFW accommodations.

Consultations on those proposals began in late October and run until Dec. 22.

The Canadian Seed Trade Association, for one, hailed Qualtrough’s expansions to the NCL, saying the inclusion of seed corn on the list gives companies in that sector “access to labour that is urgently needed.”

Seed corn companies “traditionally rely on local high school students to fulfil their temporary labour demands in the summer and have had difficulty accessing the number of workers needed, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the CSTA said Nov. 30 in a separate release.

The CSTA said it expects access to labour will “remain a large challenge looking ahead to 2021.”

Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the government said employers and workers who use the TFW program or SAWP are “encouraged to apply early to avoid any delays.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The federal government on May 1 announced “modernized” beer standards under Canada’s Food and Drug Regulations (FDR) — the rules laying out the requirements to be met by a product labelled, packaged, sold and advertised as beer in Canada.

The FDR updates are expected to allow brewers to “develop new products by using new ingredients and flavouring preparations while maintaining the integrity of beer,” the government said in a release, while offering more “clarity on what constitutes standardized beer.”

For instance, the new rules clarify the term “carbohydrate” and clarify that herbs and spices are allowed. Apart from cereal grains and flavouring preparations, the rules also allow for addition of “honey, maple syrup, fruit, fruit juice or any other source of carbohydrates.”

The updated rules also remove listed processing aids from the beer standard, making it more consistent with most of the 300-plus food standards covered in the FDR which don’t list processing aids, such as antifoaming agents used during manufacturing.

“A modernized beer standard allows Canadian brewers to develop a new range of products that meet the tastes of our consumers,” Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in the government’s release.

But the FDR will now also require beer labels to declare food allergens, gluten sources and/or added sulphites. Flavouring preparations will also have to be declared, such as, say, “beer with blueberry flavour.”

Such a declaration must either be included in the list of ingredients — which, as with all standardized alcoholic beverages, is voluntary for beer — or be added as a statement, such as, say, “Contains: Sulphites.”

Those requirements “will give consumers assurance that the beer they drink will not pose a risk to their health because of a food allergy or food sensitivity,” Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor said in the same release.

The updates also set a limit of four per cent residual sugar — that is, the sugars left in the product after fermentation is completed. The limit is meant to “distinguish standardized beer from sweeter malt-based beverages.”

‘Distinct’

The updated standard is also expected to reduce “duplication” in the FDR as it removes the standard for ale, stout, porter and malt liquor — which was “virtually identical” to the standard for beer — to have just one standard for all beer styles and types.

The changes to the FDR must be applied starting Dec. 14, 2022. Until then, the government said, Canadian brewers and beer importers “must follow either the previous or the new requirements.”

The requirements for compositional standards under the FDR only apply on products traded interprovincially or imported into Canada.

The new rules “will ensure beer is treated as distinct from other beverage alcohol categories for decades to come,” Luke Harford, president of trade association Beer Canada, said in the sam release. “We are pleased to see that the changes permit the use of new ingredients and recognize beer as a beverage alcohol product that is low in sugars.”

According to the government’s impact analysis statement, the FDR’s beer standards “had not previously undergone a major amendment for at least 30 years” while the industry “had recently been seeking the use of more ingredients than was permitted by the compositional standard.”

Some small craft breweries, the government said, “may experience difficulty in complying with the requirements because of limited financial resources.”

Also, the government granted, some products “may not meet the modernized beer standard and will have to be sold as unstandardized alcoholic beverages and not be represented as beer.”

Also, the government said, the FDR updates could potentially impact trade with other countries that don’t have the same beer compositional standard. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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While small in dollar value, the tariff shows how Canada’s retaliation has turned a dispute over metals into a broader conflict, touching many sectors.

Quebec accounted for about 72 per cent of the world’s production in 2017, but U.S. producers were eating into Canada’s market share.

Vermont is the biggest syrup producer in the U.S., but most of Canada’s imports come from Maine, according to data from Statistics Canada.

“The government here is trying to have maximum political impact, so that members of Congress, whether senators or congress-people, put pressure on Trump to say look, this is hurting us,” said Patrick Leblond, a trade expert at the University of Ottawa.

Canada last week proposed tariffs on goods ranging from ballpoint pens to mattresses to toilet paper, after the U.S. said it would impose 25 per cent and 10 per cent duties on Canadian steel and aluminum.

The list also includes a 10 per cent duty on maple sugar and syrup. In 2017, Canada imported $16.9 million worth of those goods, three-quarters of which came from Maine.

Because Canadian trade data combines sugar and syrup, it is not clear what proportion of Maine’s syrup was exported. The state produced about 3.5 million kg of syrup in 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

A Canadian government source, speaking broadly about how targets were chosen, said the government sought products that could be found easily outside the U.S., and focused on final goods to avoid distorting supply chains.

With only four electoral votes, Maine does not have the political clout of large swing states targeted by the tariffs, like Florida. But one of the state’s senators is Susan Collins, a Republican, who has repeatedly criticized Trump.

Lyle Merrifield, president of the Maine Maple Producers Association, said he does not expect the tariff to have a huge impact, but he criticized Trump’s tariffs.

“I think it’s unfortunate,” he said. “I think it’s a little ridiculous, really. I don’t blame Canada for doing it back.”

The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers controls the market, issuing quotas and maintaining a Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve, which stockpiles syrup to stabilize prices.

The industry directly supports about 10,000 full-time jobs in Quebec, which has a provincial election scheduled later this year.

Alexandre Moreau, who wrote a critical report about the quota system for the conservative institute earlier this year, said the tariff will help the Federation amid growing imports from the U.S., where prices have dropped.

“It becomes cheaper and cheaper to import U.S. maple syrup,” he said. “In the long run, it’s kind of worrisome for Quebec producers.”

— Allison Martell is a senior Reuters correspondent in Toronto.

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Those cute little cans signal the start of ski season, and time to enjoy hearty breakfasts of pancakes these cold, dark mornings.

Maple syrup is one of those delicious, natural foods you can enjoy knowing the harvest of it contributes to a healthier planet too.

A recent study shows the forests in Quebec — where the PCSC’s syrup is sourced — to be ecological powerhouses. These forests, generally protected under Quebec law, provide over a billion dollars in ecosystem services that are “useful and essential to human well-being and do not, in many cases, have any man-made substitute.”

Maple syrup forests store nearly a million metric tons of carbon each year, a carbon offset equivalent to 290,000 vehicles in a year.

These forests are also havens for other products such as berries and edible plants and they are places that beautify the Quebec countryside and provide sites for recreation and tourism.

The study assigns monetary value to services rendered by nature itself, a value often taken for granted, says the study’s author.

“The evaluation of ecosystem goods and services is an innovative new approach that’s being adopted more and more around the world,” said Groupe AGÉCO associate and study co-author Jean-Pierre Revéret. “The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers has become a pioneer in its usage here in Quebec by applying it to the maple products sector.”

Quebec maple syrup producers have always been rightfully proud of their provincial specialty. This kind of study helps more of us who want to consume food produced in eco-friendly environments a better understanding of the benefits that accrue from our food choices.

Once a maple tree is used for maple syrup production, it is generally protected by Quebec law through a number of provisions and cannot be cut down. There are, however, millions more untapped maple trees in the province, and as such are at risk — like any tree that no one sees use for — of being cut down at any time.

That’s why groups like FPAQ have a reminder for us — that a switch from other sweeteners to something that’s good for the natural world is good for all of us.

One person per household substituting just one teaspoon of maple syrup or maple sugar each day for another sweetener puts two new maple trees into production, according to FPAQ (Federation du Producteurs Acéridoles du Quebec.), a group with a long history of connecting eaters with provincial syrup producers in innovative ways.

That’s one sweet deal. Bon appetit!

The two recipes below – and more – can be found on the Pure Canada Maple website.

Maple Beer Baked Ham

Could any recipe sound more Canadian than this sugar-shack inspired meal? Serve it with a side dish of maple baked beans for a truly Christmas-in-Canada treat.

• 1 tbsp. butter
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 onion, minced
• 1-1/3 c. strong beer of your choice
• 1 c. chicken or beef broth
• 3/4 c. pure maple syrup from Canada, divided
• 3 tbsp. Dijon mustard
• 2 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp. coriander seeds
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 5-1/2-lb. smoked pork shoulder (bone in)

In a large stockpot over medium heat, melt butter. Add onions and garlic, sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. Add beer, chicken or beef broth, 1/2 cup maple syrup, mustard, cloves, cinnamon, coriander and pepper, whisking until well combined. Bring to a boil. Add pork to pot. Return to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until meat is tender, about 1-1/2 hours. Preheat oven to 400 F. Carefully remove pork from pot and transfer to a baking dish. Continue cooking liquid until reduced by half. Remove from heat and stir in remaining 1/4 cup maple syrup. Baste meat with maple glaze. Transfer to oven and bake until ham begins to crisp, about 20 minutes, basting with maple glaze every 5 minutes. Carve ham and serve with vegetables of your choice.

Recipe source: Pure Canada Maple

Maple Baked Beans

• 16-oz. dried navy beans, soaked overnight and drained
• 6 c. water
• 1 c. cubed salt pork
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1/2 c. pure maple syrup from Canada
• 1/4 c. ketchup
• 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp. dry mustard
• 1-1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large, ovenproof pot, add beans and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add pork, onion, maple syrup, ketchup, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Cover and transfer to oven. Cook 2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes. Remove lid. Cook another 45 minutes. Serve immediately or at room temperature.

Recipe source: Pure Canada Maple

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Certainly, given the economic conditions of the last century, forming marketing boards made perfect sense. Marketing boards and agencies were designed to sell agricultural commodities throughout Canada and to the world. They were also intended to protect farmers from cutthroat purchasers and from market failures.

And they did their job — until recently.

Among Canada’s 120 marketing boards, the signs of strain are showing. Two in particular face catastrophic conditions: maple syrup and dairy.

Let’s start with maple syrup.

Ontario and the United States report a record harvest this year. This “sap tsunami” has meant millions of litres of maple syrup are ready to be sold and producers are enthusiastic.

Quebec, too, has an abundant crop this year — the April weather was ideal. Yet in Quebec, where a marketing board exists, the sentiment is quite different.

This year’s maple syrup harvest is expected to exceed 150 million pounds, which would break the old record by more than 30 per cent. Many are worried that a significant surplus will end up on the black market, and deflate quota-produced syrup prices.

The aim of the maple syrup board is to artificially inflate prices at the farm gate, no matter what happens. In the current quota-based regime, excess inventories end up being sold outside the system. That leaves the Quebec federation scrambling to address the issue.

The situation in the dairy industry is even more critical. Farmers have quotas to produce milk, based on domestic demand. As well, Canada has excessive tariffs on imports.

In recent years, however, the market has changed. Today’s consumers want more products with higher butterfat content, such as butter and yogurt. At the same time they are drinking less milk and that has created a shortage of butterfat in Canada.

So dairy processors have to look outside the system, importing more than $200 million a year in U.S. high-protein milk ingredients.

The rising demand for butterfat has created excessive increases in Canadian farm gate prices, almost three times as high as the world average increase. So dairy processors have little or no chance to compete without imports.

The dairy and maple syrup situations are the result of a very narrow-minded view of world markets. Even though marketing boards try to convince Canadians that they adapt quickly to market swings, they simply do not.

Why? Because marketing boards are simply not hard-wired to deal with massive production and market condition changes.

And many farmers remain set in their ways. Today’s conditions mean farmers must cope with systemic shifts generated by climate change, abrupt macroeconomic shifts and market demand fluctuations.

Marketing boards, faced with these dramatic changes in the world marketplace, are slowly failing farmers and the Canadian public.

Many of the boards that served the Canadian agricultural economy for decades are now passed their due dates.

Each commodity deserves its own strategies and approaches, based on demand.

More broadly, it’s time for a more proactive Canadian plan to develop markets around the world. And in the face of recent international trade deals involving Canada, this needs to happen quickly, before commodity groups take further desperate measures.

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Two columns of bricks create a makeshift stove, over which giant rectangular pans sit atop a steel table-like structure. Barrels of scrap hardwood, collected throughout winter at our carpenter shop especially for this, stand nearby. As my sister Sonia adds wood, sparks spew from the roaring fire as whistles and crackles create a merry tune. Steam rises from the gently bubbling Manitoba maple sap, filling the air with a sweet aroma. While the sap is boiling, the water-like liquid changes into beautiful golden-brown syrup.

Growing up, the ‘Laura books’ were among my favourites and the maple-sugaring story from Little House in the Big Woods captured my imagination. Little did I know back then a family member would re-enact this treasured memory every year, using our native trees. Each time it brings back happy reading memories, as the last traces of winter disappear.

Weeks before the cooking begins, Sonia goes out and taps trees around our colony. Using spiles she’s made from PVC pipes to tap the trees, the sap drips into repurposed juice or vinegar jugs.

“I’ve tapped 100 trees this year, the most I’ve ever done,” she happily informed me. Less snow, coupled with an earlier-than-normal thaw made that possible, putting Sonia right in her element — enjoying nature and producing a nutritious treat, which she shares with family and friends.

Each year is different when it comes to collecting sap. When spring is nice and mild one week then much colder and wintery the next, it causes the sap flow to be much slower. Ideal conditions are created when nights are -5 C, and daytime temperatures are around +5 C. Maple sapping is a long process, and it takes about 40 gallons of sap to get one gallon of syrup. This year yields have been better for Sonia, she was able to get a gallon of syrup from 34 gallons of sap.

Sonia’s mode of transportation to tap trees and collect sap is usually a golf cart. Loaded with a drill, spiles, pails and jugs she makes her rounds twice a day. With many of the maple trees in wooded areas, getting to them can be an adventure when there’s lots of snow. One year she had to crawl over three- to four-foot drifts to get to the trees. This works well when the pails are empty, but gets more challenging when they’re full of sap, especially since you don’t want to lose any of the sweet goodness.

During wet springs, dodging puddles and mud makes for a different set of challenges. But Sonia takes everything in stride, even if it means plodding through thigh-high snow or trudging through ankle-deep mud, balancing two pails of sap. Of six sisters in our family, she’s the one who embraces the outdoors the most, savouring each season as it comes and enjoying whatever it brings.

Sometimes she takes our five-year-old nephew Jakobi to help collect sap. He loves being outdoors as much as Sonia, and feels very important taking the jugs from the tree and emptying the sap into a pail. However, he tends to get distracted by the puddles that call him for some splash time. One day there were new baby chicks in the barn.

Driving past the barn he asked Sonia, “While you collect sap, I will stay with the baby chicks. Will that work?”

“How about we both collect sap first,” Sonia responded. “Then we’ll visit the chicks later?”

Sonia also makes maple butter, which I enjoy even more than the syrup. A rich layer of this natural goodness spread on fresh homemade bread makes for a delicious and nutritious snack. I close my eyes, savour this seasonal morsel, and reminisce.

I’m a little girl again, licking maple sugar snow candy with Laura.

“Grandma stood by the brass kettle and with a big wooden spoon she poured hot syrup on each plate of snow. It cooled into a soft candy, and as fast as it cooled they ate it. They could eat all they wanted, for maple sugar never hurt anybody.”

Linda Maendel lives, works and writes at Elm River Colony, and is author of Hutterite Diaries: Wisdom From My Prairie Community

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The two governments on Tuesday announced separate AgriRecovery programs, budgeted at up to $2.69 million for fruit growers and up to $950,000 for maple syrup producers.

The Fire Blight Initiative is expected to help tree fruit growers with an “industry-led strategy” to bring fire blight under control and leave the least potential for future damage.

Post-tropical storm Arthur caused significant damage to the province’s apple and pear orchards in 2014, leading to a provincewide outbreak of fire blight affecting 95 per cent of orchards, the governments said.

Fire blight affects mainly apple and pear trees, damaging or killing blossoms and/or damaging fruit. If not properly managed, the governments said, the bacterial disease can cause “significant damage and loss” for producers.

“This will help the Nova Scotia apple industry reinvest money to continue to produce high-value fruit and capitalize on the strong export market the industry has developed,” Andrew Parker, president of the Nova Scotia Fruit Growers Association, said in Tuesday’s release.

The governments estimate the Nova Scotia tree fruit industry’s farm cash receipts at nearly $16 million per year.

The Canada-Nova Scotia Maple Sector Initiative, meanwhile, is expected to help maple syrup producers with the recovery costs to re-establish sap collection systems damaged by excessive snowfall during the winter of 2015.

The excessive snow led to “significant damage and severe setbacks” for syrup producers, the governments said, as about 40 per cent of farmed maple trees couldn’t be tapped. Lines and taps were buried in snow and producers couldn’t access their trees.

“This funding will help our maple producers get back on their feet so they can look forward to a good production this spring and in the years to come,” said Drew Hunter, president of the Maple Producers Association of Nova Scotia, in the government’s release.

More information on both AgriRecovery programs is expected to be available “in the coming days” at AgPal.ca and through the provincial ag department.

The disaster recovery portion of the Growing Forward 2 federal/provincial ag policy funding framework, AgriRecovery is meant to respond to unforeseen disasters that result in “extraordinary” costs for producers.

AgriRecovery is also meant to respond in situations where producers don’t have the capacity to cover the extraordinary costs, even with assistance available under programs such as AgriStability, AgriInvest or AgriInsurance. — AGCanada.com Network

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The warehouse in rural Quebec held more than $30 million worth of maple syrup, a whopping 10 million pounds of the amber pancake topping.

It was not clear exactly how much of the sweet stuff was taken in the heist, which occurred at some point over the last few days and was uncovered during a routine inventory check.

“We don’t know yet how much is missing — we do know it is significant,” said Anne-Marie Granger Godbout, executive director of the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers.

Numerous barrels in the warehouse were emptied of their sticky contents. The remaining barrels need to be weighed and tested to ensure the syrup inside had not been tampered with.

The robbers “were wise enough, they tried to hide their crime,” said Granger Godbout. “We just want to make sure we know how much is missing and how much is still there.”

The warehouse, some 160 kilometres (100 miles) northeast of Montreal, is one of many locations where Quebec’s maple syrup is temporarily stored ahead of sale and distribution.

The agency believes the syrup was taken to be sold on the black market. Quebec’s provincial police force is investigating the robbery.

With Quebec’s 2012 harvest expected to top 96 million pounds, the province produces some 75 per cent of the global supply of maple syrup, made from the sap of maple trees.

All the syrup held by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers is insured and the agency maintains a stockpile of syrup that it likens to a “global strategic reserve,” according to a press release.

“I can assure you there will be no shortage in maple syrup,” said Granger Godbout.

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