The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed Canada in the second-last week of November had now met protocol conditions for Seneca Valley virus and has lifted the health certificate requirement, Manitoba Pork general manager Cam Dahl said.

Earlier this year, the U.S. started requiring a veterinary export certificate for cull sows from one Manitoba assembly yard following a rise in Seneca Valley virus cases at U.S. packing plants.  

Seneca Valley virus does not have serious veterinary implications, but it shares symptoms with much more worrisome illnesses like foot-and-mouth disease. If animals arrive at processing sites with these symptoms, an investigation is triggered to rule out the weightier diseases.  

Since September, all sows from one assembly yard in Manitoba had to be inspected and signed off by a veterinarian before they could cross the border — but finding a veterinarian to come out regularly was a challenge due to biosecurity issues.

There was a temporary shipping pause as those logistics were ironed out, Jenelle Hamblin, Manitoba Pork’s director of swine health, said in an interview earlier this month. 

While the policy impacted one site, Manitoba Pork became concerned that the certification requirement would be widely applied to assembly yards.

If it had been, Hamblin said, export of cull sows would have ground to a halt due to the resources required to inspect and certify the operations. 

Last summer, the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service had halted shipments from two Manitoba assembly yards for about a week due to the virus. 

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Bill C-4, the implementing legislation for the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), passed second reading Feb. 6 and came back without amendment Feb. 27 from the Commons standing committee on international trade.

While C-4 is meant to amend various laws for CUSMA compliance, the NFU says the bill’s proposed changes to the Canada Grain Act “go beyond what is required” and would make “substantive changes to Canada’s grain quality control system.”

The CUSMA pact, as signed in Mexico City in December, has just four clauses relating to grain, only two of which call for changes to the Grain Act, the NFU said in a release Friday.

Those two clauses, the association said, would provide grades to U.S.-grown wheat according to the same quality standards and handling it as if it were Canadian-grown wheat.

However. the NFU said, C-4 goes further than CUSMA calls for, by amending the Grain Act so all U.S.-grown grains, not just wheat, would “become equivalent to Canadian-grown upon delivery into Canada’s grain handling system.”

In so doing, the association said, C-4 would allow grain companies to “increase their ability to use U.S.-grown grain to weaken prices paid to Canadian farmers by purchasing lower-priced American grain grown under U.S. Farm Bill subsidies.”

In its form at first reading, C-4 calls for the repeal of the Grain Act’s definition of “foreign grain,” replacing it with a definition of “imported grain” as “any grain grown outside Canada or the United States and includes screenings from such a grain and every grain product manufactured or processed from such a grain.”

C-4, the NFU said, would also “weaken (Canadian Grain Commission) authority to decide what constitutes contaminated or adulterated grain” and would make issuance of official export certificates “optional.”

The bill at first reading repeals the Grain Act’s current definition of “contaminated grain,” instead deeming grain to be contaminated “if the grain contains any substance in sufficient quantity that the grain is either… adulterated for the purposes of the Food and Drugs Act; or… contaminated within the meaning of the regulations made under section 51 of the Safe Foods for Canadians Act.”

C-4, the NFU said, would also “enable regulations that will allow inspectors to confer Canadian grades” on grain grown outside of both Canada and the U.S.

The bill, in its first-reading form, allows for the CGC to be able to issue “any certificate or other document setting out any information that the Commission considers necessary to facilitate the export of any grain.”

“As it stands, Bill C-4 is a Trojan Horse designed to make it easier for grain companies to pay farmers less for their grain,” NFU second vice-president Stewart Wells said in Friday’s release.

Fast-tracking C-4 “just weeks before planned consultations on revisions to the Canada Grain Act is an end-run around the public process that sidelines farmers and is contrary to the government’s claimed commitment to transparency,” he said.

That’s a reference to a review of the Grain Act, announced in March last year, to be conducted by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said last month the process for that review “is still taking shape” but added the government remains “committed to holding consultations in order to hear from grain farmers, stakeholders and parliamentarians.”

The NFU, Wells said, is calling on Bibeau “to do the right thing and correct these mistakes (in C-4) before the final vote.” –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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China said last week it wanted the Canadian government to stop allowing meat shipments to China after bogus export certificates were discovered, escalating a dispute that has also involved arrests in both countries of each other’s citizens and a halt in Canadian canola sales to China.

“We proposed a plan with additional measures for the (meat) export system in a way to tighten it and raise awareness so they reopen the market as soon as possible,” Canadian Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau told reporters in Montreal after a meeting with pork and beef industry officials.

She did not give details of the plan, which she said was delivered a couple of days ago.

Relations between China and Canada nosedived in December after Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, was detained in Vancouver on a U.S. arrest warrant. She denies any wrongdoing and Beijing is demanding her return.

After Meng’s arrest, China detained two Canadians and later formally charged them with espionage. Canada says the arrests of the two men were arbitrary.

In Beijing on Tuesday, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Canada should not “naively believe” that mustering allies to pressure China would have any effect. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously asked U.S. President Donald Trump to raise the cases of the two detained Canadians during recent discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But Jim Carr, Canadian minister of international trade diversification, said it was not unusual for Canada to seek broader support.

“Who are they to say that there’s no value in Canada talking to its allies about issues we’re having abroad? In a multilateral system, that’s how we do diplomacy,” he told reporters in Montreal.

Bibeau said Canada and China were dealing with the dispute over meat more quickly than the canola issue, which has dragged on since March. She said there was no deadline to resolving the meat issue but that Canadian and Chinese officials were discussing it daily.

It is too soon to consider compensation for the meat industry, Bibeau said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and David Ljunggren in Ottawa.

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China said on Tuesday it wants the Canadian government to temporarily stop allowing meat shipments to China after bogus pork export certificates were discovered.

The move disrupts a lucrative pork trade for Canada, the world’s third-biggest shipper, and comes as China turns to meat imports after African swine fever killed millions of its pigs.

Canada and China are also embroiled in a dispute after the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies was detained in Vancouver on a U.S. arrest warrant.

“It’s a big loss, a huge market,” said Martin Lavoie, CEO of Canada Pork International, an export marketing group. “You have alternative markets but (replacing) the volume of China, that’s the challenge.”

China bought $310 million worth of Canadian pork from January through April, making it Canada’s third-largest market by value. It is Canada’s largest pork market by volume.

Canadian pork exporters are likely to find other buyers, such as Mexico, the United States and the Philippines, but may have to accept lower prices, Lavoie said. Canadian pork processors include Olymel, HyLife and Maple Leaf Foods.

Buyers for specialty products such as pig feet may be hard to find, Lavoie said.

In the short term, more European pork is likely to flow into China, he said. The European Union is the world’s biggest pork exporter, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The United States, the second-biggest global pork exporter, is unlikely to benefit, since it is subject to a 62 per cent Chinese tariff, said Brett Stuart, president of U.S. advisory group Global AgriTrends.

Canadian pork that would normally ship to China could instead end up in the United States or competing with U.S. pork in Japan or South Korea, he said, but added the disruptions are unlikely to affect the direction of world prices.

“Global pork prices are moving sharply higher because of this surge in demand from China. It’s just beginning,” Stuart said.

In Canada, though, farmers fear that the prices they receive may dip. Industry officials are concerned China’s action may cost the sector $10 million per week, said Manitoba hog farmer Rick Bergmann, chair of the Canadian Pork Council.

China’s move also applies to beef, but Canadian sales to China amounted to less than three per cent of Canada’s beef exports last year.

An investigation by Beijing into Canada’s export certificates revealed as many as 188 “counterfeit” veterinary health documents and the existence of “obvious safety loopholes,” according to the Chinese embassy in Canada.

Ottawa has called in the RCMP to investigate, but the Canadian government is not convinced the fraudulent meat shipments come from Canada.

— Reporting for Reuters by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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China, which has already blocked imports of Canadian canola seed and product from three pork plants, said on Tuesday it wanted Ottawa to halt all meat shipments after “counterfeit” veterinary health documents were discovered. Canadian officials confirmed they had found inauthentic certificates.

“Somebody is trying to use the Canadian brand to move product into the Chinese market,” said Trade Minister Jim Carr, telling reporters the government did not know whether the meat shipments in question had actually come from Canada.

“There’s an investigation going forward and we’re taking it seriously and working very hard to get to the bottom of it because I don’t know why this is happening, in whose interest this could be.”

China suspended exports from Quebec-based pork company Frigo Royal last week after Beijing said residues of the feed additive ractopamine, which makes hogs leaner, had been found. Ractopamine is banned in China. Two other plants lost their permits because of labeling issues.

Manitoba Agriculture Minister Ralph Eichler told reporters Canada had contacted other Asian markets, including Japan, and had been told there were no issues with meat documents.

China’s move marks the latest escalation in a major trade and diplomatic dispute with Canada that erupted in December after police in Vancouver detained Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, on a U.S. arrest warrant.

Shortly after Meng’s arrest, China detained two Canadians, who have since been charged with espionage.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau left Canada on Wednesday for a Group of 20 leaders meeting in Japan.

U.S. President Donald Trump last week told Trudeau he was prepared to raise the case of the two detained Canadians with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he is to meet with on Saturday at the G20 meeting.

“No one is looking to escalate or exacerbate tensions,” Carr said when asked about the dispute.

China bought $310 million worth of Canadian pork from January through April, making it Canada’s third-largest export market by value, according to official data.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported China planned to boost inspections of imported Canadian meats and meat products.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau called the premiers of several Canadian provinces on Tuesday to brief them on the latest development, officials said.

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa released a statement on Tuesday that did not link the latest ban to the Meng case. Asked about possible political motivations, Carr said on Wednesday “no tie has been explicitly made by anybody.”

Diplomats and experts though say there is no doubt China is using the import bans and the arrests in a bid to force Canada to release Meng.

Her lawyers urged Justice Minister David Lametti on Monday to withdraw extradition proceedings against Meng, but received no immediate response.

Lametti was due to meet U.S. Attorney General William Barr in Washington on Wednesday. The Meng case was not on the official agenda, according to a statement from Lametti’s office.

— Reporting for Reuters by Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa; writing by David Ljunggren; additional reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Steve Scherer in Ottawa.

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The probe, known as “Operation Weak Flesh,” found evidence of meatpackers bribing inspectors and politicians to overlook unsanitary practices such as processing rotten meat and shipping exports with traces of salmonella, police said.

Police investigator Mauricio Moscardi Grillo said there was evidence of some companies manipulating certificates for meat exports to European markets, raising the risk of foreign restrictions on Brazil’s powerhouse protein industry.

“We’ve never seen a scandal like this in the sector… It’s horrifying,” said Alex Silva, a livestock analyst with Scot Consultoria. “This stains the entire system that Brazil has spent years building.”

Brazil exported $6.9 billion of poultry and $5.5 billion of beef last year, according to industry groups, as producers ramped up shipments to China and started sending raw beef to the U.S. (all figures US$).

Shares of JBS and BRF plunged 11 per cent and seven per cent respectively in Sao Paulo. JBS, the world’s biggest meat producer, booked net revenue of 170 billion reais (US$55 billion) last year from sales in 150 countries. BRF, the largest poultry exporter, booked net revenue of 39 billion reais in 2016.

Police said they arrested three BRF employees and two from JBS in Friday’s raids, as well as 20 public officials.

JBS said in a securities filing that three of its plants and one of its employees were targeted in the probe, but its senior executives and headquarters were not targeted. The company said it followed rigorous quality standards and sanitary regulations.

BRF also said it followed industry regulations and was co-operating with authorities in the investigation.

Court documents cited recordings of BRF director Andre Luiz Baldissera allegedly discussing on March 13 how health officials could help defend the company after inspectors in Italy found traces of salmonella in four containers shipped from a plant in Goias state in central Brazil.

The ruling by federal judge Marcos Silva also included transcripts of BRF government relations executive Roney Nogueira allegedly discussing bribery of health inspectors, including one called on to help avoid the closure of the same Goias plant.

The judge also ordered that BRF vice-president Jose Roberto Pernomian Rodrigues be brought in for questioning.

Baldissera, Nogueira and Rodrigues could not be reached for comment.

Plants closed

Brazil’s agriculture ministry temporarily closed three plants cited in the investigation, one run by BRF and two run by smaller rival Grupo Peccin, and began removing their meat products from supermarkets.

Eumar Novacki, the ministry’s executive secretary, said there was some concern that other countries would begin blocking shipments of Brazilian meat. Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi will meet on Monday with foreign ambassadors to allay concerns.

Sergio De Zen, a livestock expert at the University of Sao Paulo, said other countries may be eager to block Brazilian exports in the fiercely competitive protein market.

“But the impact will not be as big as it would be if another country had discovered this problem,” he said. “It is Brazil itself that is revealing this.”

The food industry investigation is the latest in a string of corruption probes in Brazil, as a tougher judiciary takes on cozy relations between the government and powerful businesses, backed by public outrage during a deep economic slump.

After investigations into political kickbacks on public works and oil and gas contracts, Friday’s probe struck at the heart of the booming agricultural sector, one of the few bright spots in Brazil’s economy and a major source of exports.

Police said there was evidence that meatpackers falsified documentation for exports to Europe, China and the Middle East.

Judge Silva wrote in his ruling that employees of some meatpackers, including BRF, arranged bribes and favours for inspectors ranging from political donations and favourable bank loans to small bribes including hams and other meat products.

In some cases, those inspectors would then allow employees of the meatpackers to enter government offices, access computers and issue their own export certificates, investigators said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Brad Haynes; additional reporting for Reuters by Sergio Spagnuolo in Curitiba, Pedro Fonseca in Rio de Janeiro and Guillermo Parra-Bernal, Brad Brooks and Alberto Alerigi in Sao Paulo.

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Canada’s Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay and Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday announced an agreement with Turkey on export certificates for Canadian breeding cattle effective “immediately.”

Turkey, the government said, offers “the potential of being a top export market for Canadian breeding cattle” and improved access “will position Canada as a long-term, reliable partner in meeting Turkey’s import requirements.”

Bilateral merchandise trade between Canada and Turkey was valued at $2.4 billion in 2015, including agrifood exports such as lentils, soybeans, durum wheat, non-durum wheat and chickpeas.

Overall, the Canadian government noted, Turkey’s agrifood imports have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 5.2 per cent between 2012 and 2015.

The Canadian Livestock Genetics Association and the Canadian Beef Breeds Council said in the government’s release Monday they’re “very pleased to have this new market opportunity for Canadian livestock exporters.” — AGCanada.com Network

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The Chinese government in late February announced a temporary ban on imports of Canadian beef, shortly after Canada confirmed its first case of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in a domestic cow since 2011.

The CFIA said last month on its website it had resumed issuing export certificates for China effective April 9, and federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, quoted Friday in an interview with iPolitics’ Kelsey Johnson, said beef shipments to China had resumed.

China had previously shut its ports to Canadian beef following Canada’s first BSE case in 2003, but had agreed in 2010 to again allow the Canadian product, making Canada the first BSE-affected country ever to export beef to China.

China in 2014 bought about $40 million worth of Canadian beef, or about two per cent of the total value of Canada’s beef exports, according to federal agriculture officials.

The BSE case confirmed in February, Canada’s 19th overall, raised eyebrows among officials in importing nations, many of which re-imposed temporary bans pending further information on the new case.

Case 19 was born in 2009, after Canada’s enhanced feed ban took effect in 2007 — and was also born on the same northern Alberta farm as Case 17, an animal born in 2004 and confirmed with BSE in 2010.

However, the case did not affect Canada’s status as “controlled risk” for BSE, as per World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) standards for beef safety.

South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Peru and Belarus also imposed or re-imposed bans on Canadian beef and/or beef products after Case 19 was confirmed. — AGCanada.com Network

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