The president of Canada Beef Export Federation says the country's seventeenth case of mad cow disease has not affected markets.

The beef cow was born in 2004 in Alberta, and the fatal degenerative brain disease was confirmed on Feb. 25, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reports on its website.

Ted Haney says the six-year-old animal was put down and tested on the farm and no part of its carcass entered the human food or animal feed chains.

No markets closed its doors due to this latest case -- Japan suspended imports for less than a day -- but it will delay Canada's move into a better status with the World Organisation for Animal Health, Haney says.

Right now, Canada is categorized as being a controlled risk for BSE and Haney says that category is costly for producers.

To apply for negligible risk status for BSE, a country has to have no cases for 11 years after the birth year of the youngest animal diagnosed.

Because the cow in the latest case was born in 2004, it means Canada cannot apply for negligible risk status until 2015. The process takes about a year, Haney explains.

Moving into negligible risk status means less surveillance, which costs both government and industry, reduces costs for producers and processors and opens up more markets, Haney says.

"This doesn't measure the safety of the products, beef is safe to eat as long as the appropriate measures are in place … it's an economic issue, not a food safety issue," Haney says in a telephone interview Thursday night from Mexico.

Canada exports to 51 markets now, but before 2003, when the first case of BSE was discovered, producers sold to more than 100 markets, Haney says.

The United States, which is also considered a controlled risk for BSE, is applying for negligible risk status, Haney says. Its latest-born case was 1996.

"Should they get negligible risk status and Canada maintains controlled risk, we don't know that we will be disadvantaged but we are concerned that the United States may be able to negotiate preferential access to key markets as compared to Canada, which would position Canada negatively on a competitive basis," he states.

There was just one case of BSE diagnosed in 2009, and four in 2008, a sign that the disease is in decline, Haney says. Two were born in 2001, the others in 2002 and 2003.

That's evidence that a feed ban put in place in 1997, followed by an enhanced ban in 2007 that removed specified risk materials from pet food and fertilizer, are working, he added.

"Anything that extends our timeline to negligible risk status to eventual eradication of the disease is of concern," Haney says.

"That said, we are confident that our enhanced feed bans are working properly, our industry is very well aware of the disease, our vets across the country are and our regulator, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is also very excellent in conducting surveillance and in doing proper control work when the disease is found in an individual."

Further cases of triffid have been found in samples of Canadian flax seed.

The Flax Council of Canada announced the findings last week. It says test results from the Crop Development Centre found "extremely low indicators of triffid on a limited number of breeders and seed samples."

Trace amounts of triffid were first found in an export shipment to Europe last summer. The European Union has zero tolerance for the presence of genetically modified organisms. Triffid was developed in the late 1990s but never commercially introduced to growers over concern about lost market access.

Flax trade with the EU has been shut down since the first discovery was made. The impact of the trade action on the Canadian flax industry has been huge. Over 70 per cent of Canadian flax exports are destined for the EU.

The council says extensive testing on three registered varieties -- CDC Bethune, CDC Sorrel and CDC Sanctuary -- has shown indicators of trace levels of genetically modified material below 0.01 per cent.

The council says it is leading an initiative to develop a revised domestic stewardship program, which would include an option for producers to use farm saved seed under rigorous sampling and testing procedures.

“This information has very recently become available to us and Canada’s flax industry is responding quickly to make the right decisions,” says council president Barry Hall.

“This includes direct communications with our flax growers, destination customers and other stakeholders, informing them of our revised approach as we continue working towards a long-term solution.”

Canada is the largest supplier of flax in the world, producing almost 50 per cent of the world supply and 80 per cent of world exports, with a farm gate value of $346 million in 2008.

The Quebec farmers' union is calling for a freeze on the rezoning of farmland around Montreal and Quebec City until the provincial government puts a workable system for regional development in place.

"(The province) must put the brakes on urban sprawl," says Christian Lacasse, president of the Union des producteurs agricoles at recent public hearings on the matter. "We must not sacrifice farmland to compensate for a lack of planning and vision."

Currently, regional metropolitan councils are expected to work together to create detailed land use plans for their areas. However, they've been in a stalemate on farmland rezoning for residential development for several years.

According to the UPA, that lack of consensus has led to the piecemeal rezoning and development of 826 hectares of top-grade farmland in the Montreal area alone. Another 21,000 hectares of farmland is sitting idle, pending rezoning.

The situation is even worse in the Quebec City area, which has lost some the equivalent of 2,000 football fields in farmland over the past 15 years.

The province now proposes regional governments must agree on more general metropolitan plans for development and would require the plans to align with principles and goals of provincial sustainable development initiatives. Those initiatives put the protection of farmland on an equal footing with the principle of the freedom of movement of people and businesses.

The UPA is in favour of the proposal, but wants the province to put an immediate freeze on the rezoning of farmland until a workable system for regional development is in place.

"This is a big problem -- and not just in Montreal and Quebec City, but in almost every city in the province," says Simon Marmen, an environmental planner and researcher with the UPA.

He adds both the public hearings and pending legislative changes will raise awareness and change the thinking of municipal decision makers.

"There's never really been a consensus to create and put in place plans for healthy and sustainable development in regards to land use in Quebec," Marmen says. "What's needed is some vision and planning."

The Beef Information Centre has unveiled an aggressive beef brand consumer campaign set to run from March to May.

Focused mainly in Ontario and Alberta, the promotion will use a variety of multimedia to champion the nutritional and health benefits of beef.

Consumers will hear a stronger "call to action" to consider buying Canadian beef through various channels, such as radio, print ads, outdoor billboards, online advertising, contests, recipe booklets, grocery store programs and health professional initiatives, says John Gillespie BIC chair.

The campaign targets the beef consumer who typically eats beef one to two times a week, focusing on mothers aged 25 to 49, since they are generally the food decision makers for the family.

Billboards will use a "Strong on Nutrients" theme, while advertising on Google, Facebook and Yahoo will direct consumers to the Canadian beef campaign website at www.beefinfo.org (under the Bright Idea link).

Key grocery retail partners include 220 Safeway stores in Western Canada, 169 Sobeys stores in Ontario and the Atlantic region and 77 Costco stores across the country.

According to Ron Glaser, executive director of communications with BIC, limited funding means the campaign must "pick and choose" its best target markets.

"Historically this has been southern Ontario, with the highest concentration of consumers in Canada," he explains.

Glaser says the campaign has been expanded into Alberta, home to the largest beef producing sector in the country and also the largest funder through the beef check-off.

"With 40 per cent of the cowherd, and 70 per cent of the feedlots and processing in Canada, we want Alberta producers to know what we are doing with their money."

Glaser estimates the media buy for the current promotion at $1.1 million.

Follow-up surveys will assess the campaign's success. Glaser notes these survey results, and the results of campaigns from previous years, are available by contacting him at 403-275-5890.

Beef producers who survived the four major industry shocks in the last decade can look forward to a profitable business in the future, says an American analyst.

James Robb from the Livestock Marketing Information Center in Denver, Colo. spoke recently at a Canadian agriculture conference. He listed BSE in the U.S. and Canada and a spike in feed corn prices as ethanol production took as off as major shocks beef producers faced.

The last blow was the international credit crisis which drove per capita beef consumption in the U.S. to the lowest levels recorded since 1958. The result was backed up cattle sales.

Most producers haven't met their cow-calf production costs for the past two years, Robb says. Producers responded by culling cows, causing what he describes as "a precipitous decline in the cow herd" worldwide.

"As the supply is tightening and if the demand side even stabilizes for beef, prices for cattle will increase," Robb says.

He predicts record high prices for beef and fed beef will return as U.S. beef production per capita continues to fall in 2011 and beyond. The goal isn't to reach record tonnage, just record prices.

Robb says if the population grows by 33 per cent worldwide, then animal-based protein consumption should double. Add to that a recovery from the global credit crisis and rising incomes in developing countries and demand will rise.

It's up to the economically sensitive beef industry to anticipate what the new market demands are and respond to them, he states.

Robb explains rising prices cause consumers to choose cuts like chuck, round steak and flank. They won't pay a premium for marbled meat.

With consumers looking at price rather than marbling, feeding cattle longer to gain weight won't increase profits, especially when feed costs remains high, as they're expected to do.

This is causing a fundamental change in the beef marketing strategy and he encourages the Canadian beef industry to be prepared.

In order to capitalize on emerging market demands, Robb urges producers to evaluate their herds on a three to four month period, not on a cattle cycle. And, he says, begin planning now for higher prices and costs over the next three years.

Canada's organic sector has received financial funding to develop a long-term international marketing strategy to expand the sector.

Matthew Holmes, managing director of the Organic Trade Association in Canada says the time is ripe for growing Canadian organic exports.

“The global organic market is expanding rapidly and this support will allow Canada to establish itself as a supplier of quality organic products," he says in a news release. "When you know more about supply and demand in foreign markets, you are in a better position to make sales.”

The federal government recently announced the $118,000 in funds. OTA will use the money to identify which markets to target, what products or commodities are the best fit with those markets and how Canadian companies can access these important markets.

OTA says the international market development strategy will also benefit the entire domestic sector identify gaps in the supply chain, new opportunities and innovations and provide a more co-ordinated approach to capacity development. The project will promote the availability and quality of Canada’s organic products in the quickly expanding global organic marketplace.

Also, the Canadian Organic Growers Association will receive almost $50,000 from the Government of Canada's Integrated Food Safety Initiative to develop a strategy for determining how current on-farm food safety systems can best meet the specific needs of organic agriculture. Five organic commodities will be chosen for this project in consultation with organic farmers across the country.

According to OTA, global organic sales were estimated at US $50.9 billion in 2008 and preliminary data shows that growth has continued through the global recession. In Canada, organic sales are approximately $2 billion per year, and have had an average annual growth rate of 20 per cent for the past few years.

Despite several issues converging to severely impact the finances of Canada's hog industry, an industry risk management consultant says there is hope.

Steve Dziver of Phoenix AgriTec says country of origin labelling was definitely a negative factor in the survival of Canada’s hog industry over the past few years. But, he says, it had an effect that wasn’t wholly expected -- it reduced and stabilized the Canadian swine herd.

Dziver spoke recently in Winnipeg. He says the stabilization of the hog supply and rising export demand for American pork are positive signs for the future of the North American pork industry.

There is other encouraging news for Canadian pork exports with China lifting its ban on Canadian pork imports last week. With the return of marketing opportunities, Dziver predicts productivity will be the next big concern for hog producers. 

In order to reach optimum productivity, swine herds require sows capable of producing large litters of healthy, vibrant piglets. Older breeding sows aren’t always as productive as younger sows.

One of Dziver’s charts indicates the Canadian sow herd declined by 4.3 per cent between January 2009 and January 2010. That's a 12.5 per cent decline since 2007 and Dziver says once the latest round of the federal hog transition program is included, it will be a 15 per cent decline.

Currency exchange rates will also play a role in the future of Canadian pork production. 

Dziver notes that between 2000 and 2005, a low Canadian dollar gave the nation's pork producers a $30 to $50 per animal advantage over their U.S. counterparts. Now, with the Canadian dollar close to parity, those same producers are at a $15 to $20 per animal disadvantage. 

Dziver concludes that profitability for Canadian hog producers will continue to depend on risk management and fluctuations in currency levels and input costs. 

According to the president of Syngenta Crop Protection Canada, Inc., the global population is expected to double in the next forty years and food production will need to keep pace.

Jay Bradshaw, who spoke recently at an industry meeting in Toronto, says this population growth will add stress to the food production system but adds it will also provide tremendous opportunities for the agriculture industry.

But with opportunity there are challenges.

Bradshaw says even at our current global population, food scarcity concerns are already resonating worldwide.

Physical water scarcity is a problem in some parts of the world and a burgeoning population will only add increased pressure on water resources. Bradshaw says about $30 billion worth of crops are lost globally each year to water scarcity.

While he doesn't foresee a situation as dire as the 1930s repeating itself, "global policy makers really have to pay attention with what is going on with water scarcity -- we have to find real and very sincere solutions," he says.

How?

"We have to grow more with less," he says. "From a sustainability point of view, one of the major issues at large is scarcity and utilization of water."

Bradshaw says there are some good examples of new, but basic technologies that can make a difference.

Water uptake facilitators, which use ten per cent less water and increase yields by 25 per cent, are a good example. It's a process Bradshaw dubbed "more crop per drop."

Another example, although as yet unregistered, is a Syngenta product developed to retain moisture in a plant during a drought. Applied a few days into a drought, Bradshaw says Invinsa triggers the plants physiology to close the stomata, the pores on the leaf underside, until the moisture returns. Then, the plant carries on. Results from over 400 trials on multiple crops shows the potential yield benefit is about five to 15 per cent, he says.

While agriculture suppliers and farm businesses work to produce more with less in the coming decades, they will need to do so with an eye on sustainability. Bradshaw says Wal-Mart has already implemented a sustainability index with their suppliers to assess the company's carbon footprint.

In the agriculture industry, Bradshaw says the day might come when only producers with crops with the lowest carbon footprint will have access to a supply chain.

On Wednesday, March 10, the United States Department of Agriculture released its updated U.S.-world production and supply and demand estimates for the current marketing year.

Traders generally expected U.S. corn, soybean and wheat carryover to decline slightly from the February report based on revisions to 2009 American production.

While U.S. soybean stocks were lowered, U.S. and world corn and wheat stocks were instead increased. Also of note is that world soybean stocks were up slightly given a revision higher in Brazilian bean production.

As a result, a slightly bearish tone came from this report.

The following table summarizes Wednesday morning’s USDA March supply/demand report. U.S. estimates are in billions of bushels except soyoil, which is in billions of pounds. World crop forecasts are in millions of tonnes.

 
                     U.S. Crop Production 
                 Wednesday 2009-10    January 
                 2009-10   Analyst    2009-10 
                 estimate  estimate   USDA 
 
Corn             13.131    13.081     13.151 
Soybeans          3.359     3.350      3.361 
 
 
                         U.S. Crop Yield 
                 Wednesday 2009-10    January 
                 2009-10   Analyst    2009-10 
                 estimate  estimate   USDA 
 
Corn             164.9     164.5      165.2 
Soybeans          44.0      43.8       44.0 
 
 
                 USDA U.S. Grain Carryout 
                 Wednesday 2009-10    February 
                 2009-10   Analyst    2009-10 
                 estimate  estimate   USDA 
 
Soybeans          0.190      0.195     0.210 
Corn              1.799      1.716     1.719 
Wheat             1.001      0.971     0.981 
Soyoil            2.637       n/a      2.227 
 
 
                      USDA World Carryover 
                      Wednesday  February 
                      2009-10    2009-10 
                      estimate   estimate 
 
Wheat                 196.8      195.9 
Corn                  140.2      134.0 
Rice                  90.93      92.5 
Soybeans              60.67      59.73 
Soyoil                 2.89       2.73 
 
 
               USDA World Grain Production 
                 Wednesday   February 
                  2009-10     2009-10 
                  estimate    estimate 
 
China corn         155.0      155.0 
South Africa corn   13.5       11.5 
Argentina corn      21.0       17.2 
Australia wheat     22.5       22.5 
Argentina wheat      9.6        9.0 
EU 27 wheat        138.1      138.22 
Canada wheat        26.5       26.5 
China wheat        114.5      114.5 
Russia wheat        61.7       61.7 
Ukraine wheat       20.9       20.9 
Brazil soybeans     67.0       66.0 
Argentina soybeans  53.0       53.0 
China soybeans      14.5       14.5 

Soybeans U.S. soybean ending stocks for 2009-10 are projected at 190 million bushels, down 20 million from last month’s USDA forecast. U.S. soybean production is estimated at 3.359 billion bushels, down only two million from the January estimate.

But usage is up with U.S. bean exports increasing 20 million bushels to a record 1.420 billion. Bean crush is raised 10 million bushels to 1.730 billion, based on a lower projected soybean meal extraction rate. 

Meanwhile, global soybean production is raised 0.9 million tonnes to 255.9 million tonnes. Soybean production for Brazil is projected at a record 67 million tonne, up one million from last month based on higher yields and harvested area. Bean production for Paraguay is reduced due to lower harvested area. 

Declining U.S. bean stocks and rising world bean stocks are contrarian market influences, instilling a sloppy price trend to the bean market at this time. Trade attention will now be keenly focused on the important March 31 USDA acreage report.

Corn
U.S. feed grain supplies for 2009-10 are projected slightly lower, with a downward revision in estimated U.S. corn production and a reduction in projected barley imports. American corn production is lowered 20 million bushels based on updated estimates of yields for Illinois and Minnesota, and harvested area for Michigan. But U.S. corn production remains a record at the revised estimate of 13.1 billion bushels.

But more than offsetting the lowered output, U.S. corn exports are lowered a whopping 100 million bushels as larger foreign supplies increase competition. A big jump in this report of Argentine corn production from 17.2 to 21 million tonnes is the primary source of this competition.

As a result, U.S. corn ending stocks for 2009-10 are projected 80 million bushels higher.

The corn market will have difficulty sustaining rallies as we look ahead to prospects of increased 2010 U.S. corn acreage, pulling from reduced winter wheat seedings last fall and CRP acres coming back into production. Any seeding delay worries that develop this spring (too wet) could give the market a bounce at anytime, but with world ending stocks of corn vaulting six million tonnes higher in this report to 140 million tonnes, it’s a reminder that the world is far from running out of corn.

Wheat
Based on today’s U.S. and world numbers, wheat supplies continue to get bigger with each USDA report.

U.S. wheat ending stocks for 2009-10 are projected 20 million bushels higher than forecasted a month ago as a reduction in expected food use pushes ending stocks to a very large and burdensome one billion bushel. The news doesn't dramatically change the fundamental make-up of the wheat market, but it is psychologically negative.

Meanwhile, world wheat ending stocks edges up by almost one million tonnes to 196.77 million tonnes. Global wheat supplies were boosted, reflecting higher beginning stocks in Russia and higher production in Argentina.

This process of ever-growing wheat supplies must be halted before the wheat market has any chance of shaking off its persistent sense of bearish odour.

Mike Jubinville of Pro Farmer Canada offers information on commodity markets and marketing strategies. Call 204-654-4290 or visit www.pfcanada.com to find out more about his services.