Packing plant update from B.C.

Packing plant update from B.C.

Packers: News Roundup from the November 2019 issue of Canadian Cattlemen

After completing a feasibility study, the B.C. beef packing plant committee has decided to market a B.C.-branded product before building a federally inspected packing plant. Most of B.C.’s cattle are finished and processed outside of the province, making it a challenge to sell B.C.-branded beef. A new packing plant has been seen as a potential […] Read more

Bart Lardner, Janelle Smith and John McKinnon are conducting the backgrounding study.

The economics of raising ‘natural’ beef

Researchers are comparing conventional and other backgrounding systems and crunching the numbers

How much of a premium do producers need to cover the extra cost of backgrounding cattle without growth-enhancing technologies and can they offset some of that cost or improve carcass quality with other strategies? Researchers are currently studying those very questions in a 2.5-year backgrounding study. The backgrounding project is one of many feeding research […] Read more


China’s hog losses due to African swine fever now represent 38.7 per cent of its total hog inventory.

China has a protein crisis

Prime Cuts with Steve Kay

You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, goes the old Scottish idiom. But you can if it is a Chinese sow. This is because African swine fever (ASF) has reduced China’s sow population by 37 per cent in just the past year. China’s hog losses due to ASF are rapidly mounting […] Read more

Photo: Canada Beef Inc/Getty Images

China to resume imports of Canadian beef and pork

Reuters – China will resume imports of Canadian beef and pork, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday, some four months after Beijing blocked shipments amid an escalating diplomatic feud between the two countries. “Good news for Canadian farmers today: Canadian pork and beef exports to China will resume,” Trudeau tweeted. The Chinese embassy in […] Read more


Spinning straw into gold

Spinning straw into gold

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

The rumen allows cattle to digest fibre that chickens, pigs and humans can’t, and produce high-quality beef protein from feed and land that otherwise wouldn’t produce food. Understanding the rumen better is the key to improving feed efficiency and improving cattle’s ability to convert fibre to protein. There’s as much energy in straw as grain — […] Read more




Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, Amazonas State, Brazil on Aug. 14, 2019. (Photo: Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino)

South America fires could disrupt its farm belt’s rainfall

Santa Cruz | Reuters — Forest fires that swept across Bolivia and Brazil this year could disrupt rainfall distribution across South America’s grains-and-beef producing regions in unpredictable ways for years to come, a scientist and meteorologist said. Recent rains in both countries have helped put out the wildfires, which were likely started by farmers and […] Read more



Beef sirloin tips are among the many Ryding-Regency-produced beef products now recalled. (Panainte Ancuta-Georgiana/iStock/Getty Images)

New meat recall prolongs Ryding-Regency shutdown

Ryding-Regency Meat Packers remains shut down, making an already tight processing capacity situation event more challenging for Ontario farmers. The Toronto company, along with St. Ann’s Food, announced a recall Tuesday of a long list of its products because of concerns with E. coli O157:H7. More products were added to the recall on Thursday. The […] Read more