Good morning and welcome to the Sprout, where we’ve got a double doozy—– it’s National Brisket Day and National Hamburger Day. We’ll leave you with almost 80 suggestions for summer’s grilling time, courtesy of CountryLiving.
Here’s today’s agriculture news.
The Lead
The federal Liberals are planning to table legislation in the next few days to implement the new North American trade deal.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday in the House of Commons gave notice of her intent to table the bill, which would make the necessary changes to laws and regulations to permit the new trade pact with the United States and Mexico to go into effect.
In Canada, Parliament doesn’t need to vote to approve an international agreement, though it must be tabled in the House for 21 sitting days before implementation legislation can be introduced.
Marco Vigliotti reports.
Around Town
The House agriculture committee is presenting its report on the mental health challenges facing farmers tomorrow. The committee also meets today to discuss African swine fever. They’ll be joined by various officials from Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec, the Manitoba Pork Council, Ontario Pork, Maple Leafs Foods Inc. and Olymel.
Farmers representing the Egg Farmers of Canada, Turkey Farmers of Canada, Chicken Farmers of Canada and the Canadian Hatching Egg Producers are hosting their annual pop-up diner today on Sparks St. in downtown Ottawa. They’re there to raise awareness for the benefits of Canada’s supply management system. They’ll be there until 2 p.m. on Tuesday. (We’d also like to thank them for sponsoring the Sprout for the last week!)
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is looking for Canadians’ input into how Canadian products are labelled as being such. It’s online survey is here.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday. According to the Prime Minister’s Office, they spoke about how the U.K.’s withdrawal from the European Union could impact relations between Canada and the U.K. and relations with China, among other things.
The federal government is giving $8.24 million to the Canadian Poultry Research Council under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership and AgriScience Program Clusters.
The funding will go towards addressing threats to the poultry value chain, improving poultry health and welfare, and developing best-management practices at the farm level to improve food safety and reinforce public trust, reports Real Agriculture.
In Canada
A national farmers’ group is calling on the P.E.I. government and the province’s political parties to offer mandatory education to MLAs about the province’s Lands Protection Act.
The act, introduced in the 1980s, set limits on land ownership for individuals at 1,000 acres and 3,000 acres for corporations.
However, the limits have nearly doubled in recent years with allowances for leased land and nonarable land increased to 1,900 acres for individuals and 5,700 acres for corporations, as the CBC reports.
Western Canadian farmers appear to be benefitting from inclement weather stateside.
Jon Driedger, a senior market analyst with FarmLink Marketing Solutions, said wet weather has hit large parts of the growing region in the U.S., particularly in the Midwest corn and soybean belt. The planting progress, he said, is far behind normal as a result, with the forecast predicting the wet weather to continue going forward.
He said that corn and wheat in Canada will be directly impacted by the conditions, with crops like feed barley and feed wheat to see some spillover effect, Swift Current Online reports.
The Public Health Agency of Canada says there has been a national outbreak of salmonella linked to some Compliments-brand chicken strips, as the CBC reports.
The agency says there have been 11 illness reported in seven provinces — ranging from September 2018 to April 2019 — linked to the outbreak, including three cases in Quebec and two each in B.C. and Ontario.
Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government is promising $63.7 million to a regional broadband initiative for southwestern Ontario as it looks to help rural residents access faster internet. Infrastructure Minister Monte McNaughton announced the funding for the Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology, known as SWIFT, on Monday, Real Agriculture reports.
Internationally
Brazil’s biosecurity agency has approved a new soybean seed that purportedly makes it resistant to drought and two popular herbicides, according to a statement on Friday from the companies that created the product, Reuters reports.
The completion of the regulatory process paves the way for the planting and harvesting of the so-called HB4 soybean varieties in Brazil, according to the statement from the firms. But commercial launch for export still requires approval from importing countries.
Kenya is asking the World Bank for a $750-million loan to fund more affordable housing, agriculture and other development projects as concerns flare about the East African nation’s debt load. As Bloomberg reports, the World Bank is meeting today to consider Kenya’s request for the loan, citing a person with knowledge of the matter.
