(Dave Bedard photo)

Insurance customers’ contact info dropped into MASC email

Crown crop insurance agency warns of privacy breach

A contact list of crop insurance customers at Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp. has gone out via email to several dozen of the Crown ag insurance agency’s customers. MASC on Monday said a file containing names and contact information of an unspecified number of AgriInsurance clients was “attached in error” to an email sent last Tuesday […] Read more

(PorcOlymel.com)

Olymel pork plant workers take slaughter into OT

Over 800 volunteered for added shifts with charitable twist, packer says

Workers at three Olymel hog slaughter plants in Quebec volunteered for overtime shifts over the weekend to help clear the province’s backlog of market-weight hogs, the company said Saturday. Sollio’s meat packing arm said over 800 workers at its slaughter plants at Yamachiche and St-Esprit and the former F. Menard plant it now owns at […] Read more


(ComfreyFarmPork.com)

HyLife buys pork packing, hog production capacity

Firm buys stake in U.S. packer, Manitoba hog farming business

Canadian hog production and pork processing firm HyLife has moved to expand its reach in North American pork packing as well as Manitoba hog farming. La Broquerie, Man.-based HyLife announced last week it has bought a 75 per cent stake in Taylor Corp.’s Prime Pork, a packing and processing operation at Windom, Minnesota, about 200 […] Read more

An artists’ rendition of the Merit Functional Foods plant under construction in Winnipeg. (Meritfoods.com)

Plant protein processor backed for expansion

Lenders arrange up to $85 million for Merit Functional Foods

The money has been lined up to fund a major expansion for a Winnipeg pea and canola protein processing plant that’s still being built. Merit Functional Foods Corp. announced May 4 it has secured a debt financing package of up to $85 million from “a syndicate of lenders” including Export Development Canada, Farm Credit Canada […] Read more


Morris’ Quantum Air Drill had its first public appearance at Canada’s Farm Progress Show and its formal launch at Ag in Motion in 2018. (Grainews photo by Scott Garvey)

Rite Way proposes to buy Morris Industries

Regina farm equipment maker draws up letter of intent

Cash-crunched seeding equipment maker Morris Industries has been handed a letter of intent to purchase, from a Saskatchewan suitor with a farm equipment company of its own. Calgary consultancy Alvarez and Marsal said in a report Tuesday it received a letter of intent for a “proposed sale transaction” from Superior Farms Solutions Ltd. (SFSL), the […] Read more

Plants at Delta 9 Cannabis’ indoor production facility in Winnipeg. (Dave Bedard photo)

Legalization lifts Canada’s net farm income in 2019

Livestock receipts up, unsmokeable crop receipts lower

A significant year-over-year increase Canada booked last year in realized net farm income rests mainly on 2019’s status as the country’s first full year in the recreational cannabis market. Statistics Canada on Tuesday released full-year data on farm income, pegging Canada’s realized net farm income for 2019 at $4.9 billion — a 10.4 per cent […] Read more


(Outdoorfarmshow.com)

Outdoor Farm Show relocating to cyberspace for 2020

In-person event cancelled due to COVID-19

Another major event on Eastern Canada’s fall farming calendar has halted its up-close-and-in-person plans for 2020 but expects to follow its western sister event into virtual space. Glacier FarmMedia, the owner/operator of Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show and of this website, announced Monday it will cancel its event scheduled for Sept. 15-17 at Canada’s Outdoor Park […] Read more

A flat of young vegetable plant seedlings outside of a greenhouse, waiting to be transplanted, at a farm in rural New Brunswick

New Brunswick to lift ban on temporary foreign workers

Damage 'already been done' for farmers, NFU-NB says

New Brunswick plans to end its ban on the entry of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) next week as the province moves to the “yellow” level in its COVID-19 pandemic recovery plan. The ban, announced April 28, will end effective May 29, Premier Blaine Higgs said Friday in an announcement some farmers say comes too late […] Read more


(Dave Bedard photo)

Union warns of fuel supply disruption in ‘Dear Farmers’ notice

Farmers 'should not be worried,' FCL says

The union representing locked-out workers at Regina’s Co-op Refinery Complex is warning Prairie farmers that a disruption of fuel supplies during seeding could be the “only option” it has in its labour dispute with Federated Co-operatives (FCL). Unifor 594, whose 730-odd members at the CRC were locked out Dec. 5 after serving 48 hours’ strike […] Read more

(JBSFoodCanada.ca)

JBS resumes second shift at Alberta beef plant

Out of 650 COVID cases at plant, 11 are 'active'

Meat giant JBS’s Alberta beef packing plant has resumed two daily shifts as of Thursday, as fewer than a dozen of its 2,600-plus employees are now sidelined by COVID-19. The JBS plant at Brooks, about 170 km east of Calgary, is “slowly returning to two shifts as of today,” the company said Thursday in a […] Read more