INDUSTRY NEWS

Canadian farmers are in a strong position to meet their financial obligations, despite plateauing farm incomes and slowing land appreciations, according to Farm Credit Canada’s (FCC) 2016-2017 outlook for farm assets and debt report.

Lameness is very serious and costly, and the most visible animal welfare issue on Canadian dairy farms. In 2014, the Canadian Dairy Information Centre identified lameness as the number three reason for culling, as more than 20,000 cows were reported culled due to foot and leg problems.

Canada’s dairy farmers are benefiting from growing demand for various specialty products, but will have to continue to modernize and innovate to remain competitive, according to J.P. Gervais, Farm Credit Canada’s (FCC) chief agricultural economist.

Grober Nutrition, a family company based in Cambridge, Ontario, is showing their support of the Canadian dairy industry through the promotion of education in agriculture at the University of Guelph.

On April 12, Wally Smith, president of Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC), joined a press conference organized by Les Producteurs de lait du Québec (PLQ) to express their dissatisfaction with the Canadian government on the lack of enforcement of Canadian cheese compositional standards.

Nearly 500 Holstein enthusiasts joined many local members in Alberta as Holstein Canada’s National Holstein Convention and 133rd Annual General Meeting was held April 19-23 in Calgary, Edmonton and Banff.