Attorney General Letitia James said JBS USA Food Co, the Brazilian company’s American-based unit, has “no viable plan” to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, making its stated commitment to achieving that goal false and misleading.

James said JBS has admitted its “Net Zero by 2040” commitment did not incorporate the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain, including from deforestation in the Amazon.

She also said reaching the goal was “infeasible” given JBS’ plan to increase production and therefore its carbon footprint, on top of greenhouse gas emissions that had by 2021 exceeded those of the entire country of Ireland.

“Families [are] willing to spend more of their hard-earned money on products from brands that are better for the environment,” James said in a statement. “JBS USA’s greenwashing exploits the pocketbooks of everyday Americans and the promise of a healthy planet for future generations.”

The lawsuit filed in a New York state court in Manhattan seeks a $5,000 civil fine per violation of state business laws, and to recoup ill-gotten gains from false sustainability claims.

JBS’s businesses include Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, one of the largest U.S. chicken producers.

In a statement, JBS said it disagreed with the lawsuit. It also pledged to continue partnering with farmers, ranchers and others toward a “more sustainable future for agriculture” that uses fewer resources and reduces its environmental impact.

The company generated about $53.5 billion of revenue in the first nine months of 2023, about 59 per cent of which came from North America and Central America.

JBS shares trade in Brazil. The company has been seeking to list its shares in the United States.

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JBS in a securities filing offered a one-time dividend payment of about 2.2 billion reais (C$621 million) to coax investors into backing the longstanding plan.

Shareholders will decide whether to accept the proposal at a general meeting yet to be scheduled.

JBS global CEO Gilberto Tomazoni said it is possible that the meeting will take place in 30 days. He believes that by December all steps to complete the transaction will have been taken so that the company’s shares can start trading in New York.

The proposed structure will use a Netherlands-based vehicle called JBS NV and have Class A shares with one voting right and Class B shares with 10 votes, JBS said. JBS NV’s class A common shares would trade in the U.S. and Brazilian depositary receipts would be listed for trading in Sao Paulo.

JBS’ management has repeatedly made the case that a U.S. listing would reduce its cost of capital and help its shares trade at multiples closer to peers such as Tyson Foods and Pilgrim’s Pride, which it controls.

Analysts at Bradesco BBI agreed that the much-awaited move will help close the valuation gap to its main peer in the U.S., referring to Tyson.

Sao Paulo broker Genial said JBS is a “buy” as a proposed listing in the U.S. will help improve its governance standards.

“A dual listing would better align JBS’ corporate structure it to global peers, which we believe could be received positively by investors,” Goldman Sachs said.

JBS in 2007 was the first Brazilian meat packer to go public. That year saw JBS embark on an acquisition spree in the U.S., followed by its purchase of the XL Foods beef packing business in Canada in 2013. In years prior, it had expanded capacity in Brazil and bought plants in Argentina, marking the start of its aggressive internationalization.

The U.S. listing has been in the works for the better part of a decade, but was postponed in part due to a 2017 corporate corruption scandal in Brazil and then again amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

JBS gets the lion’s share of its revenue from the U.S. market, where it processes beef, poultry and pork products for domestic consumption and export.

The JBS USA arm also oversees the company’s operations in Canada, which today include the former XL beef slaughter and packing plant at Brooks, Alta. and case-ready meat plants at Calgary and at Belleville, Ont.

— Reporting for Reuters by Ana Mano and Roberto Samora in Sao Paulo.

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The settlement resolves accusations that Bayer and its Monsanto unit failed to substantiate their repeated claims about Roundup products containing the active ingredient glyphosate.

These included that Roundup “won’t harm anything but weeds” and “do not pose a threat to the health of animal wildlife,” as well as suggestions in since-removed YouTube videos that Roundup was safer than detergent and soap.

James said the claims violated state laws against false and misleading advertising, and breached Monsanto’s 1996 settlement with New York over its advertising of Roundup at the time.

“Pesticides can cause serious harm to the health of our environment, and pose a deadly threat to wildlife,” and companies that make them must be “honest” with consumers about the dangers, James said in a statement.

Thursday’s settlement requires Bayer to stop advertising glyphosate-based Roundup as a safe and non-toxic product.

The $6.9 million will be spent on reducing the impact of pesticides on pollinators and aquatic species (all figures US$).

Bayer did not admit or deny wrongdoing.

In a statement, the German company said it was pleased to settle. It also noted that the attorney general probe, which began in 2020, drew no scientific conclusions about Roundup.

Bayer has faced extensive litigation over whether Roundup causes cancer since it spent $63 billion to buy Monsanto in 2018.

It agreed to settle much of that litigation for $10.9 billion in 2020. As of February, about 109,000 of the 154,000 claims Bayer has faced had been settled or deemed ineligible.

— Jonathan Stempel is a courts correspondent for Reuters in New York.

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) on Wednesday announced it had confirmed the presence of high-path H5N1 in a poultry flock in the township of Woolwich, just north of Kitchener.

Further details about the type of birds or number of mortalities weren’t yet available Wednesday afternoon. The agency’s report on the new case isn’t yet publicly available from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Cases were confirmed earlier this week in two commercial turkey flocks: one in the township of Guelph/Eramosa in Wellington County, also north of Kitchener, and the other in the township of Zorra in Oxford County, east of London.

As with the previous cases in Ontario, and in February at two farms in Nova Scotia, CFIA said Wednesday it “has placed the premises under quarantine and is establishing movement control measures and recommending enhanced biosecurity for other farms within that area.”

Separately, the Ontario poultry and egg industries’ Feather Board Command Centre, which monitors disease outbreaks in birds at the provincial, national and global levels, now says it’s monitoring reports of a “small backyard poultry flock with increased mortality” in southwestern Ontario’s upper Bruce Peninsula. There are no commercial flocks in that area, the FBCC said on its website, adding that lab tests are still pending in that case.

Other high-path H5N1 cases in Canada since last fall have included wild birds in all four Atlantic provinces and a bald eagle in the Vancouver area, plus domestic birds at two “non-poultry” farms in Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula and two non-commercial backyard flocks in Nova Scotia.

Since none of those cases involved commercial poultry, Canada had been considered free of high-path avian flu since 2015 just up until last month, when H5N1 was confirmed at a commercial poultry farm and at a mixed farm with poultry, both in western Nova Scotia.

After the on-farm cases in Nova Scotia were confirmed, several countries including the U.S., European Union, Japan and Korea imposed new import restrictions on Canadian poultry, eggs and/or other products, or on those from the affected province.

In the U.S. since February, cases of H5N1 have now been confirmed in commercial poultry and/or backyard flocks in 23 states — including four states directly bordering Canada.

As of Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said it’s confirmed cases in flocks in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Virgina, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The North Dakota outbreak, APHIS said Wednesday, is in a “non-commercial backyard chicken flock” at Kidder County, a south-central jurisdiction east of Bismarck. Minnesota’s cases have included a commercial turkey flock in Meeker County, west of Minneapolis; a “backyard mixed species” flock in Mower County, south of Rochester; and a commercial turkey flock in Stearns County, northwest of Minneapolis.

Among other states bordering Canada, cases of H5N1 were confirmed last month in two non-commercial backyard flocks in Knox County on Maine’s southern coast and in Suffolk County on New York’s Long Island.

This month cases were also confirmed in backyard flocks in Maine’s coastal Lincoln, York and Washington counties — the latter of which borders New Brunswick — and in a backyard flock and birds on a commercial game farm, both also in New York’s Suffolk County.

Avian flu viruses can, on rare occasions, cause disease in people, usually in cases where they’ve had close contact with infected birds or “heavily contaminated” environments, CFIA says.

Clinical signs in infected birds can include “high and sudden” mortality rates as well as declines in production of eggs, many of which are soft-shelled or shell-less; diarrhea; hemorrhages on the hock; quietness and “extreme depression;” swelling of the skin under the eyes; and swollen and congested wattles and combs.

Good biosecurity measures include maintaining “high sanitation standards” in barns and “strict control” over access to poultry houses; keeping poultry away from areas frequented by wild birds; cleaning and disinfecting equipment before taking it into poultry houses; and siting bird feeders or duck ponds well away from poultry barns.

CFIA also recommends people working with poultry suspected of being infected with avian flu, or in contact with such birds, wear protective clothing including face masks, goggles, gloves and boots. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Federal agents have seized the supplies over the past week in New York.

“The seizure was in an effort to battle the spread of African swine fever,” Anthony L. Bucci, public affairs specialist at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told Reuters over email.

Asked if the seized pork had African swine fever, Bucci said, “This is an ongoing investigation,” and added that the federal agents were working with U.S. Department of Agriculture on the issue.

China, home to the world’s largest hog herd, has reported 112 outbreaks of the highly contagious disease in 28 provinces and regions since August, with the vast majority found on farms, with one at a slaughterhouse.

The disease can kill hogs in just two days, but is not harmful to people. About one million pigs have been culled so far in an effort to try to control the spread.

Hog prices in China hit their highest in 14 months this week as the spread of the disease reduces output.

U.S. officials decided to ramp up their fight to avoid the virus after Vietnam confirmed its first cases last month.

USDA said it will add more dogs to sniff out illegal pork products at airports and seaports in an effort to keep out the contagious hog disease that has spread across Asia and Europe.

— Reporting for Reuters by Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which has owned Winnipeg’s ICE Futures Canada canola market since 2007, announced Tuesday it will shift trading and clearing of canola from ICE Futures Canada and ICE Clear Canada to New York-based ICE Futures U.S. and ICE Clear U.S.

The move to the U.S. exchange and clearing house will provide participants “with deeper liquidity, reduced administrative costs, and a more diversified risk management pool,” according to the notice.

Contract specifications will stay the same — with the same delivery points and pricing in Canadian dollars.

However, “for us as Canadians, it’s a bit of a concern,” said Keith Ferley of RBC Dominion Securities in Winnipeg.

It made sense from a business standpoint, he said, as canola was the only contract on the all-electronic ICE Futures Canada exchange, and this move will open up the market to a much broader audience.

However, he said, traders are also still waiting on answers to some questions about the transition, such as the ramifications of a move under the U.S. regulatory framework. “We’re still digging to find what it really means.”

Ken Ball of PI Financial in Winnipeg didn’t expect to see too much of a change, at least initially, noting that trading off of a computer in New York is the same as a computer in Winnipeg.

However, he said, some traders with U.S.-based commercial clients may run the risk of losing those clients if they are already trading on the ICE Futures U.S. platform and will no longer need a Canadian intermediary.

“If you’re looking at the contract on a screen, you’ll see zero change,” said Brad Vannan, president of ICE Futures Canada.

While acknowledging it’s difficult to speak in absolutes, Vannan said that “for the majority of participants, if not all, they probably won’t notice any change whatsoever.

The canola contract has seen growth over the past 10 years, he added, and a move to the world’s financial centre should see that growth continue.

“You might compare it to a hockey player moving up from the (AHL’s Manitoba) Moose to the (NHL’s Winnipeg) Jets,” said Vannan. “You’re taking a player that you see a lot of potential in and you want to perform to the best of their potential.”

While the immediate focus will be on insuring a seamless transition to the new platform, Vannan said other opportunities were likely to open up down the road.

“By moving to New York, we’re not necessarily guaranteed that there will be liquidity, but there’s a much greater opportunity to access that liquidity from a New York venue than there was from Winnipeg,” he said.

Also, he said, new contracts — such as wheat and durum contracts that failed in Winnipeg in recent years — have a far greater chance of success in New York.

A local presence will be maintained in Winnipeg, but with only two of ICE Futures Canada’s current staff of 14.

The two Winnipeg-based employees will continue with the canola contract committee and make sure the contract remains relevant for the canola industry. Vannan is among those who will leave the company after the transition.

“I’m very confident that this will provide an opportunity for continued success of the canola contract going forward,” said Vannan.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow him at @PhilFW on Twitter.

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A person involved in the deal told Reuters last week JBS had no intention of delaying the US$1 billion initial public offering (IPO) of JBS Foods International in New York, which it hopes to finalize in May or June.

Citing an unidentified JBS senior executive, Folha also reported that JBS is not considering firing workers after it temporarily suspended most its beef production in Brazil on weak demand after a scandal blocked exports to key foreign markets.

JBS is among dozens of firms targeted in an investigation by the Brazilian federal police on alleged bribery of government health inspectors and politicians.

A press representative for JBS declined to comment on the IPO plans, adding that the company is committed to preserving jobs in Brazil.

The company suspended beef production at 33 of its 36 plants in Brazil last week after some of the country’s biggest export markets banned imports of Brazilian meats. It will restart production this week at about two thirds of capacity.

On Saturday, China, Egypt and Chile lifted the suspensions, bringing hope of an end to a crisis that wiped off about one-fifth of the value of Brazilian pork and poultry exports last week.

Common shares of JBS rose 2.5 per cent on Monday after touching a 15-week low last week. They are still down 5.8 per cent since police announced the investigation on March 17.

JBS is awaiting new developments in export markets such as Hong Kong and the European Union, where import bans are still in place, before deciding whether to resume normal capacity in Brazil, according to the company’s press office.

— Reporting for Reuters by Bruno Federowski.

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The pesky feeders on crucifer crops, including canola, mustards and vegetables, have developed resistance to many insecticides as well as Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), a soil bacteria that has been genetically engineered into corn and cotton to help control such pests.

The Cornell Chronicle newsletter cites recent research in which male diamondback moths genetically engineered with a gene that prevents females from reproducing can suppress populations and slow their evolution of resistance to Bt.

“We are at a crossroads right now with how we control pests, reduce pesticides and provide food for a growing world population in a changing climate,” said Anthony Shelton, professor of entomology at Cornell’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) in Geneva, New York, and co-author of the paper. “We need to put our heads together to solve these problems with new solutions.”

The genetically engineered moth was developed by the United Kingdom’s Oxitec Ltd.

A paper published in BMC Biology describes greenhouse trials where high numbers of the GE male moths were released into cages containing pest diamondback moths. Within a few generations, the engineered moths mating with the pest females led to a rapid decline of the pests.

The Chronicle said that in additional experiments, the researchers released low levels of the GE male moths in cages with Bt broccoli and pest moths. They discovered that the GE males kept pest populations in check and also delayed the buildup of resistance to the Bt broccoli.

“Adding the two biotechnologies together — engineered insects and Bt plants — demonstrates that you could both suppress the pest population and also decrease the number of Bt-resistant individuals in the population. The way forward in farming is responsible integrated pest management to improve available methods and to introduce new methods for safe and sustainable insect pest control,” Shelton said.

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