Employment and Workforce Development Minister Carla Qualtrough announced what’s called the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program Workforce Solutions Road Map, which the government said “marks the next step in an ongoing effort to adjust and improve the TFW Program to ensure it continues to meet the labour market needs of today.”

Starting “immediately,” the government said Monday, the length of a labour market impact assessment (LMIA) — the document an eligible employer has to obtain, to show that the use of TFWs in a given workplace won’t affect the Canadian job market, and that both the employer and the specified job are legitimate — will be doubled.

Where before the COVID-19 pandemic, LMIAs were valid for six months, and were later extended to nine months, they will from now on be valid for 18 months, the government said.

Also effective immediately, the maximum term of employment for workers in the “high-wage” and “global talent” streams will be extended to three years, up from two.

“This extension will help workers access pathways to qualify for permanent residency, enabling them to contribute to our workforce for the long-term,” the government said.

Also, to better handle seasonal peaks, the number of low-wage positions that employers in seasonal industries — that is, sectors such as fish and seafood processing — can fill with TFWs will no longer be limited, making permanent the seasonal cap exemption that’s already been in place since 2015. The maximum term for those positions will also be increased to 270 days a year, up from 180.

Later, starting April 30, eligible low-wage employers will be able to hire a maximum of 20 per cent of their full-time equivalent workers at a given worksite, up from the current 10 per cent, until further notice.

Also starting April 30, in seven sectors with “demonstrated labour shortages” — including food manufacturing, accommodation and food services, wood product manufacturing, furniture manufacturing, construction, hospitals, and nursing /residential care — the cap will be raised to 30 per cent, for one year.

Also, in regions with an unemployment rate of six per cent or higher, where the TFW program now won’t process applications in the accommodation/food services and retail trade sectors, that “refusal to process” policy will be eliminated starting April 30.

LMIAs in such regions “must still demonstrate the clear need for foreign workers,” the government said, but the policy change is expected to help employers in areas where “severe labour shortages have persisted” despite higher unemployment.

Overall, the government said Monday, the Canadian labour market is tighter than before the pandemic and the job vacancy rate reached an “historic peak” in the third quarter of 2021, with much of the unmet demand is in low-wage occupations.

Out of all foreign workers coming to Canada as TFWs, over 60 per cent — about 50,000 to 60,000 per year — are agricultural workers, the government said.

“Currently, thousands of jobs are vacant in food processing plants,” Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in Monday’s release. “By facilitating the entry of foreign workers and extending their stay, our government aims to enable businesses to operate at full capacity and access new markets, increasing demand for our agricultural producers.”

The Canadian Meat Council, for one, hailed Monday’s announcement. “Our sector went from 1,700 to 10,000 empty butcher stations in the past few years,” the council’s senior vice-president for public affairs, Marie-France MacKinnon, said in a separate release Monday.

“The temporary foreign worker cap was a cap on our processing capacity and our sector’s growth potential. Today’s announcement allows our meat processors to hire temporary foreign workers, but there’s nothing temporary about our jobs; they are full-time and permanent.”

Canadian food and beverage manufacturing generally is facing an “escalating labour crisis,” the council said, with some companies reporting vacancy rates of 20 per cent or more, and some “forced to limit production and/or stop producing some products altogether.”

However, the Toronto-based Migrant Workers Alliance for Change on Monday panned the government’s planned changes. Alliance executive director Syed Hussan said the government “keeps making it easier for employers to hire migrant workers without ensuring migrants have basic rights and protections that can only be accessed by those with permanent resident status.”

Canada does not have a “crisis” of labour shortage, Hussan said Monday in a release, but rather a “wages and work conditions crisis” to be solved by “decent work and full immigration status for all.”

Low-waged essential workers, Hussan said, “should be able to come to Canada with permanent resident status instead of on employer-controlled permits with few rights.”

The government said Monday that its ministerial roundtable on TFWs, a consultative forum announced in December last year, will hold its first meeting this June, focusing on housing standards for TFWs.

Meetings of the roundtable, which will have up to 25 members and will be chaired by Qualtrough, are to be held twice each year for the next three years, each focusing on a different topic. Members are to include representatives from “stakeholders, employers, labour organizations and migrant support worker organizations.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Conservative leader Erin O’Toole on Tuesday named John Barlow, MP for the southwestern Alberta riding of Foothills, as shadow minister for agriculture, agri-food and food security.

As ag critic, Barlow replaces Lianne Rood, MP for the southwestern Ontario riding of Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, who O’Toole named Tuesday as shadow minister for rural economic development and rural broadband strategy.

Barlow’s riding along the B.C. border includes communities such as Fort Macleod, Okotoks, Claresholm and Pincher Creek and extends into Alberta’s cattle-producing Feedlot Alley region.

Born in Regina, Barlow worked as a newspaper editor in southern Alberta before entering politics. He came to the Commons in 2014 in a byelection for the riding then known as Macleod, replacing Ted Menzies following the latter’s resignation in 2013, and has since been re-elected three times in what’s now Foothills.

Among other roles, Barlow served as the Conservatives’ assistant ag critic in 2017-18, and as lead shadow minister for agriculture from late 2019 up until September last year. O’Toole then dropped him from the shadow cabinet and replaced him with Rood, who until then had been deputy ag critic.

Canada’s ag industry has become “more efficient as well as more environmentally and economically sustainable,” Barlow said in a statement Tuesday. “The government should not be targeting farmers, but rather fostering and encouraging best practices and shared information.”

Farmers, he said, “worked without compromise to ensure a safe and stable food supply throughout the pandemic… If this pandemic has revealed anything, it is the absolute need to prioritize our agriculture and food supply chains.”

Canada’s farmers, he added, “can compete with the best, but they need a level playing field to do so. Many of the recent Liberal policies put Canadian businesses, producers and farmers at a major disadvantage in the global marketplace.”

As for Rood, she said on Twitter Tuesday she has been “hands-on in rural Canada throughout my life and will continue to fight for and champion the needs of rural Canada.”

As ag critic, Barlow will face the Liberals’ incumbent agriculture and agrifood minister, Marie-Claude Bibeau, when the Commons resumes sitting, now scheduled for Nov. 22.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shuffled several of his cabinet ministers last month, Bibeau was reappointed to the ag file off the Liberals’ re-election in September to a second minority government.

Two other opposition parties will keep their incumbent ag critics when the Commons resumes sitting.

New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh on Oct. 29 reappointed Alastair MacGregor, MP for the Vancouver Island riding of Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, as critic for agriculture and food and public safety, and as deputy justice critic.

Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet on Oct. 5 reappointed Berthier-Maskinonge MP Yves Perron as critic for agriculture, agrifood and supply management.

The Green Party, which in September was reduced to a caucus of two MPs — Elizabeth May and Mike Morrice — hasn’t yet announced how they’ll handle critic portfolios.

Among other portfolios of interest to farmers, the following ministers and critics have now been appointed or reappointed:

• Environment: Steven Guilbeault becomes minister, across from critics Dan Albas (Conservatives); Monique Pauze (BQ); and Laurel Collins (NDP).
• Rural economic development: Gudie Hutchings becomes minister, across from critics Lianne Rood (Conservatives) and Rachel Blaney (NDP).
• Transport: Omar Alghabra remains the Liberals’ minister, across from critics Melissa Lantsman (Conservatives); Xavier Barsalou-Duval (BQ); and Taylor Bachrach (NDP).
• Foreign affairs: Melanie Joly becomes minister, across from critics Michael Chong (Conservatives); Stephane Bergeron (BQ); and Heather McPherson (NDP).
• International trade: Mary Ng becomes minister, across from critics Randy Hoback (Conservatives); Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (BQ); and Brian Masse (NDP).

— Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The federal government on Tuesday announced new rules for TFWs taking effect starting Sunday (March 21). Like other arrivals, TFWs will still be subject to COVID-19 testing at their airport of arrival in Canada and will have to quarantine for at least 14 days.

However, starting Sunday, if workers are asymptomatic and have private transport set up to take them to their places of 14-day quarantine — and are accompanied only by others who travelled with them to Canada — they may skip the immediate quarantine at a government-authorized accommodation (GAA) and go directly to that other place of quarantine.

But if arriving TFWs need to travel by public means, such as a connecting flight, to a secondary location after they first touch down in Canada, they will first be required to go immediately into GAAs to await the results of their COVID-19 tests, then continue on to wherever the 14-day quarantine takes place.

“Provided TFWs have a suitable quarantine plan and safe transportation arranged to their place of quarantine, the government intends to ensure employers and TFWs will not assume incremental costs associated with the three-day quarantine requirement at the point of entry,” the government said Tuesday. “Workers will also be provided with supports on arrival and during their hotel stay.”

For eligible TFWs who arrive in Canada between now and Sunday, the deferral that allowed them to skip the GAA step and proceed directly to their 14-day quarantines — and that was set to expire March 14 — has now been extended to March 21.

The new system applies to TFWs arriving for work in “primary” agriculture, horticulture and landscaping, or for work in other agrifood, fish and seafood occupations, such as livestock slaughter and food, beverage, fish or seafood further-processing.

“Foreign agricultural workers are absolutely essential to the successful operations of our farms, our food plants, and, as a result, our food security,” Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in a release Tuesday.

“We are doing everything necessary so they can arrive as scheduled and in a way that is safe for their health and the health of Canadians.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The multipartisan committee heard testimony and received submissions from more than 800 groups and individuals. Mostly-virtual meetings took place in December; the resulting consultation report was released Tuesday.

Canadians don’t yet know when the next budget will be released. Generally, this happens in March, but COVID-19 has messed up the parliamentary calendar. The 2020 budget was cancelled and replaced by an economic statement that focused almost entirely on pandemic spending.

For the 2021 budget, members of Parliament recommend the federal government restore AgriStability levels to previous levels, create a national labour strategy for agri-food and develop a new business risk management program focused exclusively on climate change.

The report recommends the 2021 budget “improve the business risk program and AgriStability be reinstated at 85 per cent of reference margins.”

Already the governing Liberals have agreed to do just that, but it can’t be accomplished without more support from Prairie provinces.

Late last year, Bibeau proposed dropping AgriStability’s maximum reference margin and increasing the compensation rate from 70 to 80 per cent retroactively for 2020 as well as for 2021 and 2022.

That would offer producers a better chance of receiving support from the program and more money when they do — but it would come at an added cost to provincial and federal governments that jointly pay for it.

The expected cost increases have made Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba hesitant to agree, despite pressure from producer groups, the federal government and, now, a multipartisan committee report.

Another recommendation from the finance committee is to “work with industry to develop a labour action plan for Canada’s agri-food sector” — a recommendation expected to be welcomed by many in the industry.

Food and Beverage Canada, for one, called for the development of a labour action plan when offering testimony to the committee. The organization represents 1,500 food and beverage manufacturing businesses in Canada, and has long called for developing such a strategy.

It released its own pre-budget consultation in August, which lobbied for a rebalancing of relationships across the supply chain.

Food and Beverage Canada also contends a “Retailer Code of Practice” should be put in place by the end of 2021, and calls for the federal government to launch an investigation into the practices of Canada’s food retailers.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is expected to at least consider the recommendations from the committee as part of her budget deliberations.

Freeland and her Liberal colleagues continue to tout the merits of a green, post-pandemic economic recovery — and U.S. President Joe Biden is also championing environmental stewardship in the early days of his administration, causing further speculation the Liberal budget will have a heavy focus on combating climate change.

To that end, a finance committee recommendation to create and fund a new business risk management (BRM) program focused on climate change is piquing interest.

Called AgriResilience, the program would be designed “to help farmers transition to lower-carbon agriculture practices, thereby reducing the growing climate risk in this sector. An AgriResilience program would reward innovation and the adoption of new, more resilient farming practices, thereby helping to reduce climate risk.”

The idea originated from Equiterre, a Quebec-based environmental organization with ties to the Liberal cabinet via one of its founders, Steven Guilbeault, currently Canada’s heritage minister.

Equiterre also recommended the federal government “adopt and fund a national strategy with nature-based solutions in the agriculture sector to limit growing GHG emissions and protect soil health.”

— D.C. Fraser reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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“We are finding that there are a lot of increased costs this year with COVID-19 and bringing in the employees, so having the extra money will help offset some of those costs,” CHC national labour chair Beth Connery said.

The government is offering $1,500 for each temporary foreign worker coming to Canada to help farmers, fish harvesters, producers and processors cover costs related to containing COVID-19.

The funds can be used to modify housing or pay for accommodations — such as at hotels or in student residences — where employees will take part in a mandatory 14-day isolation period before they can begin working.

Connery, who grows vegetable and fruits near Portage la Prairie, Man., said that on top of the additional costs of paying to accommodate employees during isolation, there are other impacts on farm finances, such as an increased cost in flights and picking up or delivering food to isolated workers.

“It’s not going to be free money. We’ll spend far more than that in additional costs this year,” she said.

“This is a stopgap that will help us get moving. But the reality is we’re going to need more of a financial backstop just because we’re planning on a normal year, but if you get into your season and your workforce disappears on you, and you’ve got a crop out in the field, what do you do?”

Connery said there needs to be further discussions and dialogue with the government “to ensure people grow all the food that we need.”

Currently she has seven Jamaican workers isolating on her farm. She is hoping roughly 50 more seasonal workers will be coming from Mexico.

“We just have no idea when or how many of them we will get,” she said, referencing bureaucratic and logistical challenges in bringing those workers to Canada.

If workers don’t arrive, Connery said they will look to mitigate risks, potentially by trying to find other sources of labour.

“Certainly, even if we do get Canadian labour now, all of our harvest seasons go through to September and October so student labour may not be the answer for us. It may be, it may not,” she said, noting the physically demanding work is not sought after by Canadians.

Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) president Mary Robinson called the funding a “pretty excellent first step.”

“This was really the first kind of meaningful announcement we’ve had in true financial support for agriculture,” she said, adding previous measures were about creating “more favourable credit opportunities” for producers.

Robinson and the CFA continue their calls for increased funding for the AgrInvest program, pointing out the $50 million being made available to the agriculture sector currently is a small fraction of the $250 billion in spending the federal government has planned as part of its financial response to the pandemic.

The program will be available for as long as the Quarantine Act — federal legislation putting in place extraordinary measures to combat the pandemic — remains in force.

Funding is available for anyone with workers who have entered Canada since March 25, when the Act came into force.

However, details of how the funds will be distributed are not yet available.

“We still have to find the best mechanism, the idea is really to provide the money to the employer,” Agriculture Minister Marie Claude Bibeau said, adding the process may be done by federal officials or filtered to provincial associations.

Employers are responsible for paying workers for the two-week quarantine period, and many will also have to provide transportation and accommodations in addition to food and basic supplies.

As well, the support is conditional on employers not being found in violation of the mandatory 14-day isolation protocols being put in place.

“There will be different ways to do the oversight and make sure that the employers and the workers are complying with the isolation protocol and with the quarantine laws,” said Bibeau, adding we can trust that employers care for their employees and want to keep them healthy.

“If we have some people who are not respecting (rules), then they can face severe sanctions and fines as well as not being able to have foreign workers in coming years.”

Immigration officials will be doing targeted inspections in partnership with provincial health authorities and local police forces, according to Bibeau.

In 2018, 56,765 workers were brought to Canada to work in agriculture. The federal funding of $50 million will cover the cost of roughly 33,330 workers.

Bibeau said the funding is based on expected arrivals of temporary foreign workers in April, May and June.

“This is based on the best estimate we have on temporary foreign workers arriving these three months; if we have to increase the amount, this is something we will do,” she said.

In February there were 7,055 temporary foreign workers in Canada – a number that has since risen to around 15,000.

“We expect to have less foreign workers,” Bibeau said, adding different recommendations to incentivize Canadians to work in the sector are being considered and reviewed.

“We definitely want to encourage Canadians to apply and to work in the food supply chain.”

— D.C. Fraser reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Monday announced up to $50 million for such employers to put such measures in place.

As part of its response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the government on March 25 announced an emergency order under the Quarantine Act requiring anyone still able to enter Canada by land, air or sea to self-isolate for 14 days, regardless of whether they show symptoms of COVID-19.

That self-isolation order applies to TFWs and anyone else who’s still allowed to enter Canada following the March 21 ban on all non-essential entry, and exempts only certain workers such as truckers, medical personnel and firefighters.

The funding announced Monday provides support of $1,500 for each TFW “to employers or those working with them” to make sure the isolation requirements “are fully met.”

The support would go to help pay the workers who are unable to work during the isolation period, and to provide for suitable accommodation and food during that time.

The funding will be in the form of lump-sum payments to employers, Bibeau said, retroactive to the date of the Quarantine Act order and available as long as that order is in force. It wouldn’t be available to employers who already had TFWs on site before that date.

On a call with reporters Monday, Bibeau said the government still has to find “the best mechanism” for delivering the funding, whether through the provinces or regional farm organizations, or by using federal immigration information.

It’s expected to take “a matter of days” for the delivery mechanism to be put in place and a “matter of weeks” for payments to be delivered after that, she said.

The support is available for “all food production firms that rely on (TFWs) including primary agriculture and food processing, as well as fisheries and aquaculture,” the government said.

Eligible employers must not have been found to have violated the mandatory 14-day isolation protocols “or any other public health order.” Any employer found violating the rules will face “severe sanctions and fines,” Bibeau said.

“Today’s announcement will help to protect the health of Canadians, while ensuring a steady labour supply to support our economy and ensure our food security during these extraordinary times,” Employment and Workforce Development Minister Carla Qualtrough said in a release Monday.

About 50,000 to 60,000 TFWs come to Canada each year for work in the agricultural, food and fish processing sectors, accounting for over 60 per cent of all TFWs entering Canada.

Bibeau said the $50 million budget, which would support such measures for about 33,000 TFWs, is based on the number of TFWs arriving into the spring and summer and could be increased if need be.

The federal opposition Bloc Quebecois, in a separate statement Monday, criticized the new measures as insufficient.

Public health is the purview of the government, not of producers, Bloc ag critic Yves Perron said, calling it “unfair and irresponsible to inflict such a burden on them, even with a last-minute financial contribution, under the threat of heavy fines above all that.”

While emphasizing TFWs are welcome and “absolutely” needed in Quebec, the Bloc, in its statement, said the workers aren’t subject to quarantine or COVID-19 testing before they leave their countries of origin, nor are they tested on arrival — yet untrained producers have the responsibility for isolating those workers, with no advance federal inspection of the places where they’ll be isolated. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Agrifoods Cooperative announced Wednesday it has an exclusive licensing agreement with New Zealand-based a2 Milk Co. to process and sell dairy products under the a2 Milk brand in Canada.

a2 Milk Co., in a separate release, said it’s expected that “a range of liquid milk products will be launched (in Canada) later this calendar year.”

“A1 protein-free” refers to cows’ milk that exhibits only the A2 beta-casein protein, rather than the combinations of A1 and A2 beta-casein proteins in most milk.

Studies cited by producers of A1 protein-free milk suggest certain people who get gastrointestinal (GI) discomfort from consuming milk — including some who believe they’re lactose-intolerant — may instead be sensitive to a protein that’s released as A1 is digested.

From that, Agrifoods said Wednesday, a2 Milk Co. has had “proven success in growing the dairy industries in the markets in which it operates, including Australia where it has now achieved over 11 per cent market share.”

Certain dairy cows, by virtue of their genetics, naturally produce A1 protein-free milk. Any dairy farmer wanting to produce such milk would have to select, through genetic testing, for an “A2A2” genotype in a herd, since cattle with an “A1A1” or “A1A2” genotype would produce milk containing A1 proteins or both A1 and A2.

According to the Canadian Dairy Network (CDN), which manages genetic evaluation data for the dairy sector, breeds with a higher frequency of the A2A2 genotype include Jersey, Brown Swiss and Guernsey.

Any producer who wants to supply an A1 protein-free market would need to either keep only “A2A2” cows or divert milk from “A2A2” cows into a separate milk tank, CDN said.

‘Certified’

The terms of the deal call for a2 Milk Co. to provide Agrifoods with access to its IP and marketing assets as well as its “proprietary systems and know-how relating to the sourcing and processing of a2 Milk.”

The New Zealand company, which has been in business since 2000 and already has brand presence in the U.S., China, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Korea, said it will also “work with Agrifoods and local Canadian dairy farmers to source milk locally.”

Meanwhile, Agrifoods — whose brand portfolio already includes Meadowfresh, Organic Meadow, Rolling Meadow, Happy Planet and others — “will leverage its substantial capabilities in-market to establish distribution across Canada and has primary responsibility for funding this venture,” a2 Milk Co. said.

Some Canadian dairies, such as B.C.-based D Dutchmen Dairy and Ontario’s Sheldon Creek Dairy, already market what they call “A2 milk” under their own brands. It remains to be seen how the arrival of the trademarked a2 Milk brand in Canada will affect those businesses.

Under the terms of its brand license, the A1 protein-free milks produced in Canada and marketed through Agrifoods “will be the first and only milk certified as A1 protein-free under the a2 Milk brand in Canada,” the co-operative said Wednesday.

Agrifoods, with the license in hand, “will leverage the a2 Milk brand’s global success to create and grow consumer and retailer demand for these products in Canada.”

“Agrifoods’ proven expertise and experience combined with their infrastructure, established member network of dairy farmers and focus on long-term growth makes this an excellent partnership,” A2 Milk Co. CEO Blake Waltrip said in Agrifoods’ release.

Agrifoods chair Tim Hofstra said the deal offers a “tremendous” opportunity to grow the co-operative’s overall positions in specialty milks “by offering consumers more choices for authentic, farmer-owned, Canadian dairy products.”

Also, he said, “a2 Milk-branded milks will give lapsed milk drinkers the reason needed to come back to the dairy case.”

Ben Janzen, chair of the B.C. Milk Marketing Board, also hailed the Agrifoods announcement as “a big win for Canadian dairy, highlighting both the future focus and innovation of our industry.”

Dairy Farmers of Canada, as recently as 2017, has said evidence is limited to some small clinical trials in humans to assess GI tolerance of milk with A1 and/or A2 proteins, and that the evidence is “weak and inconclusive” on whether A1 may affect digestive function in some people with milk intolerance.

“More research is needed… in order to establish the validity of this hypothesis,” DFC said in a 2017 sheet distributed to health educators. Alberta Milk, on its website, agrees on the need for more research and noted such research is happening.

DFC also noted that other milks, including goat, sheep and water buffalo milk as well as human breast milk, can also be considered “A2.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Agropur and Agrifoods International Co-operative, which combined their yogurt manufacturing and marketing operations in 1993 to form Ultima as a 50-50 joint venture, announced a deal Thursday which will see Agropur become Ultima’s sole owner.

Ultima, which bought B.C. yogurt processor Olympic Dairy in 2004 and launched its own Canadian brand, Iogo, in 2014, today has about 660 staff in plants at Granby, Que. and Delta, B.C., with annual sales of over $300 million.

Ultima currently also makes Yoplait yogurt products for the Canadian market in a co-packing deal with that brand’s majority owner General Mills.

The two companies said the deal is subject to “the usual authorizations, including those of the Competition Bureau,” which an Agrifoods spokesperson said they hope to receive within the next couple of months. The deal’s financial terms won’t be released, the spokesperson said.

“This transaction continues along the course we have charted and will support our long-term development in the yogurt category,” Agropur president Rene Moreau said in a release Thursday. “We are always very proud when we are able to keep processing assets in the hands of Canadian dairy farmers.”

Agrifoods president Tim Hofstra described the deal as “a very positive transaction as it will create the optimal condition for Ultima Foods’ development.”

Agropur CEO Robert Coallier described the deal as “a unique opportunity to develop and optimize our business model.”

He also described the partnership with Agrifoods to date as “very fruitful,” having led to the rebranding of Olympic and the creation of the Iogo brand, “a launch that is considered a milestone in the history of Canada’s food industry.”

For its part, Agropur said it expects the deal “will augment Agropur’s range of products in the fresh dairy market”, adding that Ultima “will continue to be the only national Canadian-owned yogurt-maker.”

Burnaby, B.C.-based Agrifoods, formed as a dairy farmers’ co-operative in Western Canada, was previously best known for the Dairyworld milk business, which it sold to Saputo in 2001.

Agrifoods’ remaining brands include organic dairy product line Organic Meadow, foodservice and private-label dairy line Meadowfresh, organic juice, soup and dairy line Happy Planet and, under the Earth’s Own label, SoFresh almond and cashew beverages, So Nice soy and almond beverages and So Good soy beverages.

“Moving forward from today’s transaction, Agrifoods is excited to enhance our focus on innovating and nurturing our family of brands and continuing our leadership role in the health and wellness industry in Canada,” Hofstra said. — AGCanada.com Network

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The Liberal government committed up to $950 million (over five years) in its March budget to create hubs that would focus on key economic sectors in an effort to kickstart investment, boost exports and create jobs.

The proposed Smart Agri-Food Super Cluster “is intended to create a pan-Canadian platform to help the sector’s diverse, and sometimes disparate, ‘silos’ align more coherently to identify and resolve challenges in the agrifood value chain,” its three proponents said in a news release.

“We felt it important to create something that constructively brings together all the players that comprise the ways we do farming and food,” said Bill Whitelaw, chair of the group’s steering committee. “Our approach is intended to resolve some of the fragmentation dynamics that often hinder innovation efforts.”

The group’s goals include promoting innovation in cropping, livestock, digital and agrifood processing technologies, the release stated.

If successful in obtaining federal seed money, the cluster would seek to involve businesses, not-for-profits, research organizations and post-secondary institutions in projects that create new jobs, export opportunities and safer and more sustainable food production.

“Ottawa would like to see innovation as the driving force that significantly improves Canada’s already strong ag and food leadership position globally,” said Whitelaw, a senior executive with Glacier Media Group (parent company of this website).

“Moving the country upward in global export rankings could create billions of new economic impact.”

If its proposal is funded, the Smart Agri-Food Super Cluster would be administered from Calgary but would seek out partners from across the country, he said.

The supercluster concept has been successfully applied in California’s Silicon Valley, Canada’s Kitchener-Waterloo region, and cities such as Berlin and Tel Aviv, the federal government said in announcing the program.

The creation of superclusters will depend on what proposals are submitted, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains told the Toronto Star earlier this year.

He identified agrifood — along with areas such as advanced manufacturing, digital technology, and health/biosciences — as sectors where Canada is well positioned to become a stronger global player.

Calgary-based Agrium is in the process of merging with PotashCorp to form a new company to be called Nutrien. MDA (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates) is based in Vancouver and has annual revenues of more than $2 billion. –– AGCanada.com Network

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Ultima Foods announced last week it will put up $10.8 million of its own funds plus a $3.6 million interest-free loan from Investissement Quebec, the investment arm of the provincial government, toward an expansion of its plant at Granby.

The “new equipment and procedural fine-tuning” at the Granby plant will boost its weekly production from 2.7 million units to 4.8 million, the company said June 6.

“Not only do we have to serve consumers, who are always on the lookout for new products, but our facilities must also be extremely efficient to build our relations with our clients,” Ultima president Martin Parent said in a release.

Ultima, which said it today produces about 30 per cent of the yogurt consumed in Canada, had “reached the limit of its drinkable yogurt production capacity.”

Optimization of operating costs will allow Ultima to “reinvest even more in the development of new yogurt products,” the company added.

Ultima, which markets its wares under the Olympic and Iogo brands, said the latest investment is expected to create 35 to 40 jobs at the facility.

Ultima’s expansion announcement came just two days before it announced a recall of certain sizes and formats of its Iogo smoothies, protein drinks and Nano drinkable yogurt, due to the “possibility of the presence of plastic fragments.”

The company said June 8 it took the action voluntarily “in an overabundance of caution,” noting no fragments have been found in any finished product and no consumer complaints have been reported.

The recall, which on June 8 included products distributed in Western Canada, Ontario and Quebec, expanded the next day to cover the products nationwide. — AGCanada.com Network

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