
Potatoes

Alberta potatoes chip in $2.9 billion for Canadian economy
New report verifies what many in industry suspected
Alberta’s potato industry is making a big impact — not just on that province but the entire country. A new report — dubbed a “landmark study” by the Potato Growers of Alberta — revealed the sector drove a total contribution of $2.87 billion to Canada’s economy in 2022. It also notes the nationwide creation of […] Read more

Gene-edited crops clear CFIA’s regulatory bar
Agency guidance puts gene editing on level of conventional breeding
Plants gene-edited for efficient use of water or nutrients or to better withstand pests or drought now won’t have to clear the same regulatory hurdles in Canada as any crops that are modified for herbicide tolerance or include foreign genes. Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Wednesday announced updated guidance from the Canadian Food Inspection […] Read more

Thompson returns as P.E.I. ag minister
Ag and land ministry split; Compton not returning to cabinet
Prince Edward Island’s former agriculture minister is again its current ag minister, in a post-election cabinet shuffle by returning Premier Dennis King. Bloyce Thompson, MLA for the district of Stanhope-Marshfield since 2019 and ag minister from 2019 until last summer, was again appointed April 14 as King’s minister of agriculture, justice and public safety and […] Read more

P.E.I. ag minister, ag critics re-elected
Tories return with majority; Liberals regain official opposition
Prince Edward Island’s incumbent agriculture minister and opposition agriculture critics prevailed in Monday night’s provincial election, in which incumbent premier Dennis King’s Tories were returned with a majority. Darlene Compton, King’s agriculture minister since last summer and his incumbent deputy premier, won re-election Monday for the Progressive Conservatives in her district of Belfast-Murray River. Compton, […] Read more

McDonald’s reported laying off hundreds of corporate employees
Layoffs don't include restaurant-level workers
New York | Reuters — The number of corporate employees McDonald’s Corp. plans to lay off this week will tally in the “hundreds,” a source familiar with the burger chain’s thinking said on Monday, as the company moves forward with a previously announced restructuring. The fast-food company is closing its offices “out of respect,” and […] Read more

Potato wart survey gives clean bill of health
Fields across Canada with a history of getting seed potatoes from P.E.I. tested negative
A national survey on the watch for potato wart has come back clean. On March 13, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said results from their 2022 potato wart survey had not found any cases of the soil-borne fungus. The agency had tested nearly 1,500 soil samples from fields in British Columbia, the three Prairie […] Read more

McCain to double Alberta french fry plant capacity
Lethbridge-area plant to more than double staff count
Alberta’s plans to boost its irrigated acres are being met near the starting line with a major french fry producer’s plans to double the capacity of its plant there. McCain Foods announced Monday it will put up $600 million to build two new production lines for frozen french fries and potato specialty goods at its […] Read more

Adama’s lambda-cy products to be available this year
Company to continue selling Silencer, Zivata after recall
The Canadian arm of ag chem firm Adama says it’s relabelled its inventories of lambda-cyhalothrin insecticide products Silencer and Zivata and will have them available for sale to farmers in 2023. The company had said last November it wasn’t yet sure those products would be available this year under an approaching deadline following a 2021 […] Read more

Canada’s potato crop edges up in 2022
Alberta up into top spot among potato-producing provinces
MarketsFarm — Statistics Canada (StatCan) issued its potato production report Thursday, which noted a 1.5 per cent increase in the country’s crop in 2022. Across Canada, nearly 122.9 million hundredweight (cwt) of potatoes were harvested last year, with an average national yield of 322.3 cwt/acre on 381,351 acres. Alberta rose from third into the top […] Read more

Borderline city hosts interprovincial food trade pilot
Trade barrier on pause for two years for food businesses serving Lloydminster
The idea of loosening interprovincial trade in certain foods made by provincially-inspected processors will get a major test in one of Canada’s very few province-crossing municipalities. The Saskatchewan, Alberta and federal governments on Jan. 19 announced the start of a two-year pilot project within the limits of Lloydminster, a city of over 31,000 people straddling […] Read more