The project’s lead researcher is so excited she’s putting off retirement.

“I want the first experiment in a system like this. This is so exciting,” Karen Schwean-Lardner said in a University of Saskatchewan news release.

Earlier this month, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation announced $6.2 million in funding to build a state-of-the-art poultry laying facility at the University. The foundation is a federal government-created non-profit set up in 1997 to fund research infrastructure in Canada.

WHY IT MATTERS: The proposed facility will allow researchers to improve poultry barn lighting, housing and food systems for better animal welfare and egg production.

The Saskatchewan Egg Producers contributed $3 million while the university’s agriculture and bioresource department added $1 million.

“This will move us so far forward in poultry research,” said Schwean-Lardner in the release. Schwean-Lardner is a professor in the university’s department of animal and poultry science.

The nearly 24,000-square-foot facility is set to include three types of hen housing: enriched, free run and free-range. Ten individual housing rooms will have controls for lighting, temperature and other environmental factors.

“Each one is like a little mini-barn,” Schwean-Larder told media.

“Big data is getting more attention these days. We have a lot of data that can be gathered over time, and this unit is going to allow us to manage that data and collect it over a long period of time,” assistant professor Deborah Adewole said. “There are going to be a lot of new things that we can do for poultry research.”

The facility will also include viewing rooms so public groups — for example, schoolchildren — can see the chickens and housing systems while reducing biosecurity risks.

“We can control the environment. Right now, we cannot do that in the same way,” said Adewole. “This facility is one of its kind in Canada. There are other universities that have built new facilities, but this one is encompassing all systems and has space for public viewing systems as well — which is a first in Canada.”

Schwean-Larder said her first experiment would look at the effects of light on the hens and will involve researchers from the U.S.

“To be able to do that kind of research with an international perspective, I can’t stand it. I’m losing my voice because I’m excited.”

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Bill C-234, which passed the House of Commons in late March, remained on the Senate’s order paper for debate Wednesday afternoon, after adjournment Tuesday night without a vote on third reading of the bill — nor a vote on a proposed amendment from the Independent Senators Group (ISG).

The new amendment, put forward Nov. 9 by Ontario Senator Lucie Moncion — an ISG member appointed to the Senate in 2016 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — would amend the bill’s proposed sunset clause so that after eight years, approval for an extension would require Parliament to pass a new bill.

Marc Gold, a non-affiliated senator who serves as the Liberal government’s representative in the Senate, was among those speaking Tuesday in favour of Moncion’s amendment.

Gold said that without Moncion’s proposed change, a review and extension of the bill’s proposed farm fuel exemptions beyond eight years “could proceed with a simple resolution passed in both chambers or by a decision of the executive branch, with no role for parliamentary scrutiny and oversight or committee examination and study.”

Senator Don Plett, leader of the opposition, called Moncion’s proposed amendment “frivolous” and said C-234, as was passed in the Commons, would already allow for a further extension to be initiated — and the length of that extension determined — only by the government, via an order-in-council.

A further extension also wouldn’t be granted unless approved by both the Commons and Senate, he added.

As written, C-234’s language for extending the time frame of its sunset clause “is not unique to this bill,” he said, citing a similar sunset clause for rail interswitching provisions in Bill C-30, the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act.

Rather, Plett said, by forcing a Senate-amended C-234 back to the Commons, “the only utility of this amendment is to carry the (Liberal) government’s water and defeat the bill.”

‘Intimidation’

Debate on C-234 was to continue Tuesday evening but Quebec Senator Raymonde Saint-Germain, also an ISG member and Trudeau appointee, rose at that time on a question of privilege, citing an incident on Nov. 9 which she said infringed on senators’ privilege “to conduct our business free from obstruction and intimidation.”

At the Nov. 9 session, she said, ISG Senator Bernadette Clement’s motion to adjourn debate on the proposed amendment was met with some Conservative senators “demonstrat(ing) physical and verbal intimidation directed at members of my group and myself.

“After violently throwing his earpiece, (Plett) stood before Senator Clement and me as we sat at our desks, yelling and berating us for proposing this routine motion that would see debate resume the following week, when we returned,” Saint-Germain said, adding that another Conservative senator, Michael MacDonald, shouted the word “fascists” at ISG senators.

Later, Saint-Germain said, “at least two” Conservative senators retweeted a post on social media platform X “that not only spread misinformation about the proceedings but encouraged members of the public to call and harass” Clement and Senator Chantal Petitclerc, adding that it “elicited high volumes of threatening phone calls and emails to these independent senators.”

Clement, speaking Tuesday evening to Saint-Germain’s question of privilege, said “Canadians deserve to know that adjournment doesn’t mean a bill is being nixed, but that nuanced explanation wasn’t offered by people pointing the finger at me.”

Senate Speaker Raymonde Gagne noted some senators who had been mentioned in Saint-Germain’s question of privilege weren’t present Tuesday evening, and said she would hear “brief additional arguments” on the matter on Thursday.

However, Conservative Senator David Wells then put forward a separate question of privilege stemming from the same Nov. 9 sitting, saying Moncion had “walked over from her seat and accused me of bullying” after the session was suspended.

Such an action, he said, “creates an atmosphere that may hinder any senator from even contemplating engaging in free debate, lest they be accused of bullying.”

Moncion replied that she was not threatening in her approach but wanted to call attention to a separate tweet from Wells alleging that Gagne, as speaker, “in concert with the ISG leadership has shut down debate” on C-234.

“Receiving a point of privilege was disappointing, but I understand where you’re coming from,” she said. “You want an apology from me, I apologize, Senator Wells, and I apologize in front of this whole chamber.”

Asked by Gagne if he wished to pursue the matter further, Wells replied that “given the debate and the open discussion we’ve had as well as my professional and personal regard for Senator Moncion, I consider this issue closed.”

Debate on Moncion’s amendment resumed briefly before the Senate adjourned for the day at 11 p.m. to resume at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Conservative MP John Barlow brought forward Bill C-275, “an Act to amend the Health of Animals Act (biosecurity on farms),” as a private members bill. It arrived before the Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food on Sept. 28.

Barlow, the Conservatives’ shadow minister for agriculture, agri-food and food security, and MP for the southwestern Alberta riding of Foothills, had also put forward the previous version, Bill C-205, in 2020. The new bill takes up roughly where it left off.

It states: “No person shall, without lawful authority or excuse, enter a building or other enclosed place in which animals are kept, or take in any animal or thing, knowing that or being reckless as to whether entering such a place or taking in the animal or thing could result in the exposure of the animals to a disease or toxic substance that is capable of affecting or contaminating them.”

It applies fines up to $250,000 or up to two years’ jail time for individuals, and fines up to $500,000 for organizations.

While not explicitly mentioned, Barlow indicated the bill is in reaction to actions of activists, such as those who snuck into a turkey farm in his riding — likely a reference to a 2019 incident in which a group of activists broke into a turkey barn on a Hutterite colony north of Fort Macleod.

Barlow told the committee the bill applies existing penalties in the Health of Animals Act to people who trespass on farms in ways that contravene biosecurity practices and increases penalties to groups who encourage these actions.

While a few provinces have similar laws, “I think it behooves us as the federal government to have a national program in place that will cover all provinces and territories because that is not happening now,” Barlow said.

He added that while trespassing laws might apply to these scenarios, they only applied small fines that would not be enough to deter groups who he said fundraise off protests.

“There has to be teeth to this,” he said.

Barlow said the act would not limit people’s rights to protest, or target whistleblowers who lived or worked on the farm.

“This bill does not limit an individual’s rights to peaceful protest on public property,” he said. “This bill also does not prevent whistleblowers from coming forward when they are witnesses to practices that jeopardize our food security, our food safety or the welfare of animals. Canadian farmers and ranchers have a moral and legal obligation to look after their animals.”

Barlow also argued that the bill would help protect the mental health of farm families who feel targeted and attacked by activists.

Bill C-275 incorporates some of the amendments made to C-205 but drops a previous amendment that dropped “without lawful authority or excuse.”

When questioned about this, he told the committee that stakeholders saw this as redundant, as the bill had already been carefully worded to protect whistleblowers.

That amendment had been made by NDP agriculture critic Alistair MacGregor, who argued that references to trespassing must be removed as trespassing laws are not federal jurisdiction.

“If you are a farmer or farm employee, if you are a transport driver or if you are a protester, if you violate the biosecurity protocols in place on a farm, this law applies equally to you. That’s the main essence of my putting it forward,” he said in a committee meeting in June 2021.

In a meeting Thursday, Barlow said that on Oct. 16, the Commons ag committee would consider the bill clause by clause before returning it to the Commons to be voted on.

— Geralyn Wichers is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator.

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IHT (Innovative Heating Technologies) Group announced Thursday it will make and sell a line of water-cooled pads that use a patented system designed at Purdue University in Indiana, to launch in the North American market in spring 2024.

The pads use two-by-four-foot aluminum tread plates over metal pipes that circulate cold water based on input from sensors that gauge whether an animal is too warm.

The cooling pad system was designed by Allan Schinckel of Purdue’s animal sciences department and Robert Stwalley of the university’s agricultural and biological engineering department.

IHT’s active swine cooling pads “will represent a paradigm shift in hog production, increasing both operational efficiency and animal welfare,” Stwalley said in the company’s release Thursday. “We are refining the pads and their materials, currently testing stainless steel pipes versus copper pipes to continue optimizing their performance.”

In initial research, Schinckel said, the cooling pads led to a decrease in sows’ overall respiration rates, slightly lower internal temperatures and lower daily maximum temperatures. Sows also produced more heat, corresponding with increased feed intake and milk production.

Piglets in pens with the cooling pads also showed a 26 per cent increase in weaning weight and 7.2 per cent increase in feed intake, he said.

Boars in pens with the cooling pads also showed reduced heat stress abnormalities and respiration rate, in turn maintaining the animals’ semen quality, IHT said, citing Purdue’s research.

The company is promoting the cooling pad system as a timely addition given recent record heat in North America.

“Under heat stress conditions, lactating sows reduce their feed intake and milk output to attempt to reduce their metabolic heat production. In consequence, their piglet growth and subsequent reproductive performance is negatively affected,” Francisco Cabezon, president of research for U.S. livestock services firm Pipestone, said in IHT’s release.

“In boars, some negative impacts of heat stress are decreased sperm motility and concentration and an increase in sperm abnormalities.”

IHT said it ran a commercial assessment of the pad system under an evaluation agreement with Purdue’s Office of Technology Commercialization, based on which it made a deal for an exclusive license for the system’s manufacturing and sales.

A spring launch date for the cooling pad system will correspond with hog farmers’ preparations for summer, IHT president Chris Grant said. “That launch date will also allow us to compile and analyze final data from the boar stud tests, which will be available in October.”

In business since 1995 and operating at Oak Bluff, Man., just southwest of Winnipeg, IHT’s other product lines include Hog Hearth heating pad systems and IL-TEK LED lighting systems for barns.

The Hog Hearth system for farrowing crates is billed as a more energy-efficient alternative to traditional heat lamps, conducting sensor-controlled heat evenly and consistently under non-slip plastic casing.

Decisive Dividend Corp., a Kelowna-based investment firm focused on acquisitions in the manufacturing sector from “exiting legacy-minded business owners,” bought IHT in July for $15.5 million in cash and shares.

Partners Chris Grant and Matt Robins, who had owned the IHT business since 2013, have committed to manage it for at least the next three years.

Among Decisive Dividend’s other holdings are Penticton, B.C.-based Slimline Manufacturing, which makes the Turbo-Mist line of ag sprayers. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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In a joint statement June 13, Keystone Agricultural Producers, the Alberta Federation of Agriculture and the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan urged the Senate to pass Bill C-234 before the end of June, when it breaks for the summer.

Why it matters: June 30 is the last possible sitting day for the Senate, after which no business will clear the chamber until at least Sept. 18, when farmers are already looking at harvest.

Both KAP president Jill Verwey and AFA president Lynn Jacobson said the end goal is to have the bill given royal assent by the time farmers want to start drying grain this fall.

“We have strong support from a number of senators,” Verwey said. “We’ve been in contact, certainly. Our MPs that are in Ottawa are certainly having a lot of those conversations with individuals so that they understand the importance and the urgency of getting this passed.”

Verwey said the exemption is critical for farmers.

“Individuals [in the Senate] realize that farmers don’t have a choice and it is a fuel that is used to produce,” she said. “It’s also important even for the welfare of the animals. We’re north of the 49th parallel. We have to use fuel for heating of these barns… In a lot of cases, drying of grain is a normal practice for a number of farming operations.”

The bill passed its second reading in the Senate the same day that farm groups released their statement; it was sent to the standing Senate committee on agriculture and forestry, and for examination by the standing Senate committee on national finance.

It was initially introduced to the Senate on March 30, after spending just under two months in the House of Commons. A total 176 of 322 MPs voted in favour of the bill on its third reading March 29 in the lower house.

The bill must still clear the committee/report stage, as well as a third reading in the Senate, before being put forward for royal assent.

Both Verwey and Jacobson said they were “cautiously optimistic” that the bill will clear the Senate before the summer break. After the end of June, the Senate will not reconvene until September.

“I think they realize that it needs to be done,” Jacobson said, though he worries some other issue may divert the Senate’s attention in the meantime.

“That’s been one of the things in the past. Something else has come up to interfere with whatever you’re trying to do.”

Several senators, including Senator David Wells, who sponsored the bill in the upper house, pointed to the legislation’s multi-party support in the House of Commons.

“This bill is not about whether you like the carbon tax,” Wells said. “Although Conservatives are opposed to the carbon tax in principle, the NDP, Bloc Québécois and the Green Party fully support it. Yet all these parties voted in favour of this bill, along with a number of Liberal members including the chair of the House standing committee on agriculture and agri-food.”

Senators who spoke positively on the bill also acknowledged the lack of alternative fuel sources for grain drying and barn heating.

The exemption for propane and natural gas was characterized as a transition measure, allowing time for newer, green fuel sources to become feasible. The bill includes a sunset clause of eight years for this reason, Wells said. A review would then let the government decide if the exemption should be extended.

Some senators questioned the length of the sunset clause and asked whether having an exemption would be a disincentive for adopting new, greener technologies.

“One of the strategies around carbon pricing is to try to incentivize people to make other choices. It is clear that is a real challenge for farmers in this context, but removing this from the carbon pricing regime does kind of disincentivize that direction,” Saskatchewan-based Senator Brent Cotter said May 9.

“I haven’t really thought about the eight-year clause too much,” Jacobson said. “I guess my focus has just been to get it passed for now. Things are going to change in eight years,” particularly in terms of energy use and cost.

“Just working off past experience with agriculture, we’re always moving forward and looking for better alternatives,” he added.

“Adoption of technology that’s available and processes that are available, people are willing to move in that direction and try different things, as long they’re economical and they can see that there’s an economic benefit as you go forward.”

Verwey urged farmers to contact senators to reiterate the farm groups’ message.

— Alexis Stockford is associate editor of the Manitoba Co-operator.

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Bill C-234, a private member’s bill sponsored by Ben Lobb, the Conservative MP for the southern Ontario riding of Huron-Bruce, passed third reading for adoption in the House of Commons on Wednesday by a vote of 176-146.

The bill, introduced in February last year, amends the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to extend the carbon price exemption for farmers’ eligible fuel purchases to also include purchases of marketable natural gas and propane.

The bill also expands the allowed uses of exempted fuels, to include grain drying systems as well as heating or cooling of farm structures directly involved in livestock or crop production, such as barns or greenhouses.

C-234 also includes a sunset clause which will see the exemption brought back in eight years for review, allowing whatever government is in place at that time to let it lapse — or to amend or extend it, if new technologies available at that time don’t yet warrant ending the exemption.

Private members’ bills — legislative and policy proposals brought forward by individual MPs rather than the governing party — rarely pass in the Commons but are more likely to gain traction in a minority government. A previous version of C-234, Bill C-206, died on the order paper before the 2021 federal election.

C-234 also drew support from several farmer and commodity groups, including 15 national organizations speaking under the banner of the Agriculture Carbon Alliance (ACA), a policy group set up in 2021 “to ensure that Canadian farmers’ sustainable practices are recognized.”

The ACA, on Twitter Wednesday, called the bill’s passage in the Commons “a huge step towards realizing the full potential of #CdnAg.”

Keith Currie, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture — an ACA member group — thanked Lobb and supporting MPs on Wednesday on Twitter, adding “Now let’s get it through the (Senate).”

Canadian Canola Growers Association vice-president and ACA chair Dave Carey on Wednesday also credited Lobb’s fellow Conservative MP John Barlow, Liberal MP and Commons standing ag committee chair Kody Blois, NDP ag critic Alistair MacGregor and Bloc Quebecois ag critic Yves Perron for “outstanding leadership” on the file.

In a separate release Tuesday, Andre Harpe, chair of ACA member Grain Growers of Canada, said that “by extending the exemption for qualifying farming fuels to natural gas and propane, this amendment will unlock innovation and drive sustainable growth in the sector.”

“Farmers incur a carbon price when using natural gas and propane for necessary farming practices such as grain drying, land irrigation, and heating or cooling their barns,” GGC said in Tuesday’s release. “As there are no viable alternatives, pricing these activities does not provide a signal to lower emissions from these sources.”

C-234, GGC said, “will allow farmers to invest in practices that drive innovation and new efficiencies that reduce fuel usage by putting money back in their hands.”

MORE READING: Finding ways to maximize grain drying efficiency

The eight-year sunset clause was added at the standing ag committee last November. That clause, Barlow said at the time, is a reflection of Canadian farmers’ confidence that new and sustainable technologies will come forward to replace the gas- and propane-fired options they now use to dry grain and heat barns.

Separately on Wednesday, the federal government announced $22.2 million has been allocated to another 45 projects under its Agricultural Clean Technology (ACT) Program – Adoption Stream, related to “adopting more efficient grain drying technology.”

That brings the adoption stream’s allocations so far to over $37.1 million across 99 grain dryer projects across Canada, the government said in a release.

The adoption stream of the $495.7 million ACT is budgeted for $60 million in all, including $50 million for purchase and installation of more efficient grain dryers and $10 million for “fuel switching initiatives.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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C-234, a private member’s bill sponsored by southwestern Ontario Conservative MP Ben Lobb, appeared before the Commons’ standing committee on agriculture and agri-food on Monday and was reported back to the Commons.

According to Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), the bill — which had its first reading Feb. 7 and second reading May 18 — is now expected to come up for third reading during the House’s winter session before moving on to the Senate.

C-234 carries amendments to the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act which expand that legislation’s definition of eligible farming machinery to include grain dryers as well as barn heating and cooling systems, and which extend the exemption for farming fuels to include farmers’ purchases of natural gas and propane.

“This exemption is needed to reflect the realities of the entire Canadian agriculture industry and the undue financial burden the carbon tax places on all the necessary practices undertaken by farmers and ranchers like drying grain, irrigating crops, or heating and cooling livestock barns,” Conservative MP and opposition ag critic John Barlow said in a release Wednesday.

The standing ag committee on Monday did pass several amendments to Lobb’s bill, tightening its scope.

Those include a sunset clause — which Barlow said is a reflection of Canadian farmers’ confidence that new and sustainable technologies will come forward to replace the gas- and propane-fired options they now use to dry grain and heat barns.

That sunset clause will see the exemption brought back in a set period of time for review, allowing whatever government is in place at that time to let it lapse — or to amend or extend it if the available technologies don’t yet warrant ending the exemption.

Barlow’s original amendment called for a 10-year sunset clause, but committee members later voted to shorten that period to the bill’s eight-year anniversary — citing testimony the committee heard suggesting such technology would be available sooner rather than later.

Another approved amendment will limit the exemption’s use in farm buildings, to only include those structures directly involved in crop or livestock production, such as barns or greenhouses.

‘Critical issue’

Grain and livestock producer groups have since lined up to cheer the bill’s return to the Commons, urge MPs of all parties to approve its passage and call for Canada’s Senate to do the same.

“It is clear that (ag committee) MPs understand the lack of current alternatives for grain drying and the need to provide an exemption until viable technological solutions are developed,” GFO chair Brendan Byrne said Tuesday in a separate release.

With “no viable fuel alternatives” available for the practices covered in C-234, imposing carbon pricing on those activities “does not provide a signal to lower emissions from these sources,” Grain Growers of Canada said Wednesday in another release.

Instead, GGC said, C-234 “will put money back into the hands of farmers so that they can continue to invest in practices that drive innovation, further efficiencies and reduce fuel usage.”

“With rising input costs, inflation and supply chain shortages, carbon surcharges on necessary farm activities adds an additional burden and pulls capital away from critical investments,” GGC chair Andre Harpe said in the same release.

The Agricultural Carbon Alliance, a body representing the GGC and 14 other national-level grain, livestock and general farm groups, said Wednesday that with the bill approaching third reading, it now plans to launch a public advocacy campaign “that will call for a bipartisan consensus on this critical issue.”

Fram group representatives appearing before the ag committee echoed many of the same concerns. “We understand that the carbon price is a market signal for producers to adopt low-emission energy alternatives wherever possible, but over the past year that signal has been dwarfed by skyrocketing costs for inputs such as fertilizer, gasoline and diesel,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture vice-president Todd Lewis said at the committee’s Oct. 24 meeting.

“Even when fuel prices aren’t at record highs, farmers constantly seek to increase fuel efficiency wherever possible.”

However, another speaker, University of Saskatchewan associate professor Tristan Skolrud, cautioned the committee at the same meeting that C-234 runs the risk of further drawing out the timeline for development of viable alternatives.

With “limited changes in producer behaviour, there will be limited reductions in (greenhouse gas) emissions from grain drying before greener alternatives become available,” he said.

“The development of greener alternatives will require significant private capital, and if grain drying is unregulated, the signal to private capital will be lost. Previous testimony on this amendment suggests that sufficient alternatives are at least 10 years away.

“Keep in mind that this estimate is a function of the carbon price. A higher price will shorten that time frame if private capital senses a profitable opportunity.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Cam Dahl, who was named GM of the provincial pork organization in February last year after previously working for Manitoba Beef Producers and Cereals Canada, cited two projects he considers to be a boon for Manitoba’s pork industry.

The first was the $182 million, 73,000-square foot expansion of the Maple Leaf Foods plant in Winnipeg. built for packaging pre-cooked bacon and completed last October.

“Those were 350 jobs we were exporting to the United States previously,” Dahl said.

Later this month, Dutch hog breeder Topigs Norsvin will officially open its new nucleus facility named Innova Canada in the Municipality of Westlake-Gladstone, at a site about 100 km northwest of Portage la Prairie. The company’s Canadian headquarters are in Oak Bluff, just outside Winnipeg.

“It’s a $35 million investment and it comes with 35 high-tech jobs,” Dahl added. “These are the kinds of investments that are happening because we have that critical mass of production here. The industry’s growing and maybe there are some bottlenecks that are holding that up, but… we see the demand for the product.”

Worldwide, there is plenty of uncertainty according to Dahl. African swine fever (ASF) continues to threaten pigs in countries including China, the Philippines and more recently in Germany.

“There’s close to $500,000 coming from producers that goes into research on things like protecting ourselves from ASF, working on production diseases like porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED),” he said. “What are the best practices to minimize some of those costs? Research plays a really large part and (we’re) making sure we’re prepared for those large shocks…We’ve come a long way on biosecurity over the last 20 to 25 years.”

Meanwhile, recent COVID-19 lockdowns in China could negatively impact the number of pig exports going to the country and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is threatening feed grain shipments.

On the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the December lean hogs contract on Thursday touched 88.25 U.S. cents per pound, its highest price in a month. But while Dahl says prices are strong for Manitoba pork, costs are also high.

“The prices of wheat, corn and soymeal are not cheap,” he said. “We’re not in a drought in the Great Plains this year, but the last couple of years, the drought really did have a significant impact because of the prices people were seeing for feed.”

A porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) outbreak first detected on Manitoba hog farms last year is slowing down, Dahl said, and he believes the pork industry will continue to grow in the coming months.

“Since 2017, we’ve seen about 40 barns built since (Manitoba’s moratorium on new hog barns) was lifted,” Dahl added. “But there’s that uncertainty and it’s something that comes with the industry and we’ll need to be prepared for that in case shocks do happen.”

— Adam Peleshaty reports for MarketsFarm from Stonewall, Man.

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At least 64 people, including six children, lost their lives in Kentucky after a raft of tornadoes tore through six states.

“We have a 200-mile swath through Kentucky that has pulled-down grain systems, destroyed chicken hatcheries and of course blown-over barns,” said Ryan Quarles, Kentucky’s agriculture commissioner.

The destruction in the Midwest could further raise already high chicken prices and add to supply-chain headaches that have made it difficult for farmers to replace tractor parts.

Poultry is Kentucky’s top agricultural commodity, and at least a dozen chicken barns collapsed, Quarles said. The state is working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to properly kill and dispose of chickens housed in barns that were destroyed, he said.

President Joe Biden will visit the state on Wednesday to survey the damage.

One Pilgrim’s Pride chicken hatchery was a total loss, and another is expected to be offline until spring after suffering significant damage, the company said in a statement. It added that other company hatcheries are supplying chickens to farmers near Mayfield, a town of 10,000 that suffered some of the worst damage from the tornadoes.

Pilgrim’s, mostly owned by Brazilian meatpacker JBS, is evaluating damage to a local feedmill, while a production plant is expected to be fully operational on Wednesday, the statement said.

The loss of the hatchery in Mayfield “automatically triggers a multi-month delay in the processing and raising of chickens because the hatchery simply is not there anymore to supply the farmers,” Quarles said.

Mayfield is in Kentucky’s top county for agricultural sales, accounting for six per cent of the state’s total farm business, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, though the state is not a top grain producer. Kentucky held 1.5 per cent of U.S. corn stocks in December 2020, USDA said.

“Lots of farmer elevators damaged. Some small feed mills have damage with indefinite timelines,” said Andrew Jackson, broker at Producers Hedge, in Lancaster, Kentucky.

Mayfield Grain Co., a crop handler, had roofs ripped off of parts of a storage system that holds six million bushels of grain in Mayfield, Quarles said. That’s enough corn to fill two Panamax vessels — each ship the length of two football fields.

Photos on Twitter showed yellow corn visible from the tops of bins that lost their roofs. The company had no immediate comment.

“You have millions of bushels of corn, much of which was just freshly harvested, being exposed to the elements, being damaged,” Quarles said.

“We’re looking for ways to recover spilled grain but also divert the storage and movement of grain to other facilities around the state.”

Quarles said the agriculture department will help farmers find buyers for grain amid reduced demand for feed from livestock and poultry producers who suffered losses.

Hutson Inc., a company that sells Deere equipment, said its flagship store in Mayfield was “destroyed by one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit the state.”

Workers “waded through debris and used what equipment they could salvage to assist with rescue efforts at a candle plant located next to us that had mass casualties,” CEO Josh Waggener said in a statement online.

Deere said it is in touch with Waggener and working with Hutson to provide financial assistance to the community.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tom Polansek, Christopher Walljasper and Mark Weinraub in Chicago.

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On April 1, the federal government’s carbon levy on diesel will go up from 8.05 cents per litre to 10.73 cents, a 33 per cent increase. Last December, the federal government promised $15 billion in new spending on climate initiatives until 2030, such as electric vehicle charging infrastructure, home retrofits and tax write-offs for zero-emission vehicles.

According to data from Natural Resources Canada, the average retail price for diesel on the week of Feb. 11 was $1.159 per litre including taxes, the highest seen since last March. Average prices on Friday ranged from $1.051 in Lloydminster, Alta. to $1.369 in Grand Falls, N.L.

Roger McKnight, chief petroleum analyst for En-Pro International in Oshawa, Ont., said every dollar change in crude oil prices translates to 0.6 cent at the pumps. He added that the carbon tax would make Canadian fuel less competitive on the markets.

“South of the border, they don’t have that sort of thing. It puts us at a disadvantage,” he said. “Transportation costs (along with those of) goods and services in this country will be significantly higher than they are in the United States…You’re at a disadvantage compared to an American shipping firm.”

McKnight also explained that a possible shutdown of Enbridge Inc.’s Line 5, carrying oil and natural gas from Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ont., would also raise prices even higher, but they may ease when COVID-19 vaccines reach a greater amount of the population. He predicts diesel fuel prices to increase by five to eight cents per litre over the next few months in addition to the carbon tax.

Bill Campbell, president of Manitoba-based Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP), said the organization has followed diesel fuel prices closely. Farmers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario are exempt from paying the carbon tax for fuel used on farm equipment and vehicles not licensed for public roads, but it still has a downward effect on farmers’ revenues.

“When we see an increase of that carbon tax, businesses will probably increase their costs and what they charge people,” he said, adding that the tax is also paid to transport crops to market.

KAP had been in talks with the federal government with regards to new programs for farmers funded by the carbon tax, but Campbell said there has been “no clarity” from the government as to whether revenues from the tax generated through agriculture will be returned to agriculture.

“We want to be recognized for the good that we do with regards to storing carbon in the soil and in our products… We are also asking for an exemption on grain drying and the heating and cooling of livestock barns,” he said.

“We have adapted (to the tax) pretty good, but to be hit with an additional carbon tax for the production of food needs to be really looked at and clarified to ensure Canada has food security and economic sustainability. We need to address what agriculture provides to this country.”

— Adam Peleshaty reports for MarketsFarm from Stonewall, Man.

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