The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), which is tasked with testing the infected herd, said Thursday that as of July 12, a total of eight cases of bovine TB have been confirmed from that herd.

CFIA first reported in late June that tissues from a heifer originating from the Saskatchewan herd were confirmed positive for TB in a PCR test at slaughter in the U.S. in February. That animal isn’t included in the eight cases.

The animal’s source herd was quarantined and its cattle over six months old were all put through live tests in May, after spring calving. Animals that reacted to live tests were then culled and their tissue samples PCR-tested at CFIA’s lab in Ottawa, which on June 19 confirmed the two cases in Canada after the one previous detection in the U.S.

The agency also said Thursday it had so far identified one separate “contact” herd, which will undergo live testing this month.

Trace-out and trace-in work are ongoing, the agency said. “Trace-out” involves finding herds that received animals from an infected herd, while “trace-in” refers to separate herds that provided animals to an infected herd. Those traces will examine movements to and from the herd over the past five years.

As for the infected Saskatchewan herd, it has now been “humanely depopulated,” CFIA said. As of Wednesday, post-mortem inspection and confirmatory tissue testing are still ongoing.

The agency also said Wednesday it has now ruled that the initial heifer which tested positive in the U.S. had not spent time on any other farm premises in Canada.

The heifer was in a Canadian feedlot for five months before it was shipped last September to a U.S. feedlot, where it remained until slaughter, CFIA said. All the animals with which it came in contact at the Canadian feedlot were destined for slaughter; none were moved to other farms, CFIA said.

CFIA said it has also begun tests to identify the specific strain of TB bacterium, as “this may inform if there are connections to previous cases.”

Investigations of Canada’s previous two outbreaks of bovine TB — in 2018 in British Columbia, and in 2016 in Alberta — never turned up any “definitive” source of infection.

The separate strains in those two previous outbreaks were found to have no link to any earlier tuberculosis cases in livestock, wildlife or people in Canada, nor to each other. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

CORRECTION, July 14 — A previous version of this article incorrectly included the index heifer detected at slaughter in the U.S. as one the eight cases of bovine TB confirmed by CFIA. We regret the error.

The post More bovine TB cases found in Saskatchewan herd appeared first on Farmtario.

Canada has booked 322 outbreaks in domestic birds in the past 19 months, of which 31 were detected so far in 2023. Of the 31, just one was detected in May, in a commercial barn in Quebec’s Les Maskoutains regional municipality (RCM) on May 6.

As of Friday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which oversees quarantines, culls and disinfections at outbreak sites, counts 35 of the 322 as still “infected,” mainly in backyard non-poultry flocks.

Of those remaining 35, eight active sites were in commercial poultry: five at Les Maskoutains, one in Quebec’s Rouville RCM, one at Taber, Alta. and one at Chilliwack, B.C. One other still-active site, near Weyburn, Sask., involved “non-commercial” poultry.

While Canada is not yet free of notifiable avian flu, its decline in active cases and absence of new cases can be seen as positive signs amid North America’s months-long run of outbreaks.

Under the World Organization for Animal Health’s Terrestrial Animal Health Code, WOAH member countries should not impose bans on trade of poultry commodities in response to cases of influenza A viruses in birds “other than poultry.”

In all, as of Friday, Canada has had to cull an estimated 7.668 million domestic birds in nine provinces, both poultry and non-poultry, since its 18-month run of avian flu cases began in Newfoundland in December 2021.

That case, at a “non-poultry” farm on the Avalon Peninsula, had marked Canada’s first high-path avian flu outbreak since 2015.

No domestically-acquired human cases of avian influenza strains have been reported in Canada. However, Canada’s run of outbreaks since late 2021 has seen the virus turn up in multiple wild species, including foxes, seals, dolphins, black bears, wild mink, raccoons, porpoises and skunks. The virus was also confirmed in April to have killed one domestic dog at Oshawa, Ont., after it was seen chewing on a wild goose.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., where 836 domestic and backyard flocks in 47 states have had cases since the start of 2022, leading to culls for an estimated 58.79 million domestic birds, no new cases have been confirmed in domestic birds since May 18. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Canada books first month in 19 without bird flu outbreak appeared first on Farmtario.

Lab results on Wednesday confirmed anthrax as the cause of death of one animal in a flock of sheep in the R.M. of South Qu’Appelle, about 50 km east of Regina, the provincial ag department said.

The bacterial disease remains the suspected cause of death of four other sheep on the same premises, the province said in a release Thursday.

The pathogen, Bacillus anthracis, can survive in spore form for decades in soil and those spores can build up on pastures due to changes in soil moisture, whether from flooding or drying, the province said.

Animals are at increased risk of exposure to anthrax in drier years when areas normally known to be sloughs or potholes dry up and become accessible, or when ground is excavated or sees excessive runoff.

Infections occur when forage contaminated with spores is eaten by livestock; ruminants such as bison, cattle, sheep and goats are known to be “highly susceptible.” Affected animals are usually found dead without any signs of illness.

Horses can also be infected, the province said, while swine, birds and carnivore species are more resistant to infection. That said, farm dogs and cats should be kept away from carcasses, the province added.

Producers in regions known to have had anthrax outbreaks are “strongly encouraged” to vaccinate their animals each year, the province said, particularly if a neighbour’s animals are confirmed to have been infected.

Saskatchewan’s most recent previous confirmed case of anthrax infection in livestock was in bison in the nearby R.M. of Chester in 2019.

People are at “minimal” risk of exposure from infected animals but can be infected through direct contact with sick animals or carcasses, the province said. People who believe they have been exposed to an infected animal should contact a doctor or the local health authority.

Carcasses of animals suspected to have been infected shouldn’t be disturbed, but should be protected from scavenger animals such as coyotes or ravens, to avoid spreading spores in the environment.

Anthrax is a reportable disease, meaning veterinarians and labs must report all positive test results to the province’s chief veterinary officer within 24 hours. A producer who suspects anthrax in livestock should contact a local veterinarian immediately.

While anthrax is also still federally reportable, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency stopped actively investigating cases of anthrax in livestock in 2013.

Saskatchewan in 2014 set up a provincial anthrax response strategy, intended to help affected producers in protecting animal and public health. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Anthrax kills southeastern Saskatchewan sheep appeared first on Farmtario.

Fraser Valley Health, the regional health authority for the area, on Sunday declared an outbreak at the farm after eight workers tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in people. The farm’s exact location has not been released.

The farm’s operators and affected staff are now self-isolating, Fraser Health said Sunday, adding the site has been inspected by Fraser Health and WorkSafeBC and “we continue to work with the site on their COVID-19 mitigation strategies.”

Testing of animals was also launched, as mink are known to be susceptible to the virus and can transmit it to people, and vice-versa. The farm was put under quarantine and ordered to restrict transport of animals, products and goods from the site, Fraser Health said Sunday.

Tests from five mink samples taken from the farm have all since been confirmed positive for SARS-CoV-2, the provincial agriculture ministry said in a separate release Wednesday.

The infections — which mark the first known such cases in Canadian farmed mink — “were expected, considering the interaction between infected workers and mink on the farm,” the ministry said.

Samples were collected from the mink herd and submitted to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg after the affected workers’ tests turned up positive, the province said.

The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has also been notified, as per Canada’s international reporting requirements, the province added.

CFIA, in its report to the OIE, also noted “an increase in mortality” in the farm’s mink herd in the days following testing, totalling about 200 deaths out of about 15,000 mink.

Testing to determine genome sequencing and the strain of the virus is underway and results are anticipated “in the coming week,” the province said.

The quarantine remains in place, the ministry said, with a plan to provide feed and care to the mink during the outbreak that respects the conditions of the quarantine and “maintains worker and mink safety.”

The farm’s latest routine inspection was carried out in September by the provincial chief veterinarian and ag ministry staff and was “found to comply with all animal welfare and biosecurity standards.”

The COVID-19 outbreak at this farm is not considered to pose a health risk to other mink farms, the province added.

Mink-related variants

Canada’s mink farms reportedly began tightening their biosecurity after COVID-19 cases turned up in mink — first in the Netherlands in April, then in Italy, Spain, Sweden and the U.S. — and most notably in Denmark, where officials last month ordered a cull of the entire Danish farmed mink population.

Denmark’s cull was ordered on concerns that if a coronavirus reservoir establishes in farmed mink, the virus could pass back to humans in variant forms that resist COVID-19 vaccine candidates that have been developed for use on people.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), in a risk assessment released Nov. 12, determined the risk so far from SARS-CoV-2 mink-related variants to be:

• low, for the general population, including those in areas with a high concentration of mink farms;
• moderate, for those with occupational exposure to minks, and for “medically vulnerable” people generally;
• moderate-to-high, for medically vulnerable people in mink-producing areas; and
• “very high,” for any medically vulnerable people with occupational exposure to minks.

The ECDC’s assessment is based on its analysis of mink-related variants, which so far has turned up only one with enough changes to its spike protein to raise “specific concern due to its effect on antigenicity.”

That said, the ECDC added, “it should be noted that continued transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in mink farms may eventually give rise to other variants of concern.”

Alan Herscovici, who operates the fur industry website TruthAboutFur.com, wrote in a blog post last Friday that the risk of inter-farm spread of COVID-19 is “far lower” in North America than in, say, Denmark, where “more than 1,200 farms were producing over 17 million mink in an area smaller than Vancouver Island.”

By comparison, about 200 farms spread clear across Canada and the U.S. produce about three million mink per year, he wrote. Cases found so far on U.S. farms, while involving thousands of mink, “appear to have been rapidly and effectively contained.”

However, the B.C. outbreak motivated at least one animal welfare group, the Canadian arm of Humane Society International, to reiterate its call to end fur farming in Canada.

“Clearly, the millions of minks that are intensively confined in Canadian factory fur farms are highly susceptible to contracting, mutating and transmitting SARS-CoV-2, which can result in outbreaks in human populations and undermine medical progress,” HSI said in a release Wednesday.

“It is unconscionable that our federal and provincial governments continue to allow and subsidize this cruel industry and put the health and safety of Canadians at risk simply to serve the whims of the fashion industry,” HSI wildlife campaign manager Kelly Butler said in the same release.

Canada’s National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) maintains a code of practice for the care and handling of farmed mink. A five-year review was completed in 2018.

NFACC, on its website, says the code is “currently undergoing an amendment” expected to be completed in March next year. “Major challenges” expected to be addressed in those amendments include pen sizes, access to nest boxes and methods of euthanizing mink. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

UPDATE, Dec. 10 — Article updated to include data from CFIA report to OIE.

The post Minks, staff positive for COVID-19 at B.C. mink farm appeared first on Farmtario.

The decision came after a coronavirus outbreak in Ontario hit at least 17 farms, killing two Mexican workers aged 24 and 31, and prompting the testing of about 8,000 migrant farm workers.

Canadian farmers rely on 60,000 short-term foreign workers, predominantly from Latin America and the Caribbean, to plant and harvest crops.

This year, Mexico’s Temporary Agricultural Workers Program (PTAT) has sent more than 16,000 people on short-term contracts to Canada, including 10,600 people since the pandemic began, the labour ministry said.

The program was halted only from March 19 to April 9, restarting after Canadian authorities said there were proper health conditions.

Workers planning to travel to farms that have had coronavirus outbreaks or do “not have a strategy of prevention and care for workers” will be reassigned, the labour ministry said in a statement.

Ken Forth, president of Canada’s Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services (FARMS), said Mexico is looking for assurances that workers will be safe.

“No additional workers will go to the farms where there’s an outbreak until they can demonstrate to the Mexican government that they’ve done all the protocol for the new workers to come,” Forth said.

CNN and Canadian media earlier reported that Mexico had put the program on hold while it reviewed Canadian health policies and procedures, citing Mexican embassy officials in Ottawa.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he expressed condolences to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in a recent call.

“We are going to make sure that we’re following up,” Trudeau said, citing living conditions and labour standards as areas that must be considered.

— Reporting for Reuters by Daina Beth Solomon and Frank Jack Daniel in Mexico City and Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa.

The post Mexico to stop sending workers to Canadian farms hit by COVID-19 appeared first on Farmtario.

Tyson Foods was forced to briefly close its Storm Lake, Iowa plant — a month after U.S. President Donald Trump’s April 28 order telling meatpackers to stay open — as worker absences hobbled its slaughter operations.

Nationwide, 30-50 per cent of meatpacking employees were absent last week, said Mark Lauritsen, a vice-president at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW).

More than a dozen meatpacking workers, union leaders and advocates told Reuters that many employees still fear getting sick after losing confidence in management during coronavirus outbreaks in April and May. Absenteeism varies by plant, and exact data is not available, but some workers’ unwillingness to return poses a challenge to an industry still struggling to restore normal meat output.

Daily pork production was down by as much as 45 per cent in late April as some 20 plants closed because of outbreaks. Production has rebounded since plants reopened last month in response to Trump’s order, but remains down from before the pandemic. UFCW, which represents about 80 per cent of U.S. pork and beef production, told Reuters that major pork plants are running at about 75 per cent capacity.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that processors slaughtered about 438,000 hogs on Friday, down 12 per cent from the peak before the pandemic.

USDA and the White House declined to comment for this story. Tyson, Smithfield and other meatpackers say they have taken extensive safety measures, at great cost, to protect workers.

Meat companies have prevented the pace of slaughter from falling further by bolstering kill lines with employees from other operations that require more labour, such as butchering and deboning. As a result, meatpackers are producing fewer products that require extra work — such as boneless hams — and throwing away items such as offal that otherwise would be sold, Lauritsen said.

The cure for absenteeism is a safe job at a decent wage, Lauritsen said.

“Right now” he said, “there are employees that don’t see the safe job part.”

Fighting infection, fear

Plants became hotbeds of infection because they house thousands of employees working in close quarters. Outbreaks tightened meat supplies and contributed to a 40.4 per cent surge in prices in May.

The world’s biggest meat companies have spent tens of millions of dollars to protect workers by erecting physical barriers, taking workers’ temperatures, providing protective gear and staggering break times. They have not been able to eliminate infections, however.

“They have changed a lot of things that I think are great,” said Alejandro Murgioa-Ortiz, a community organizer who works with meatpacking workers in Iowa and Nebraska. But workers remain wary, he said, because “there’s still so many risks.”

Infections have risen steadily in rural counties that are home to large meatpacking plants since Trump ordered them to stay open. At least 15 meatpacking counties now report a higher infection rate, on a per capita basis, than New York City, the virus’s epicentre — though that is likely a reflection of the extensive testing of workers and local residents along with elevated infection rates.

In Kansas, 2,896 meat workers have tested positive, accounting for nearly one third of all cases in the state, according to the state health department.

Exposed again

At the Smithfield pork plant at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, about 1,200 employees — about a third of the workforce — were absent as of June 1, including some who quit, said BJ Motley, president of the UFCW local. The plant closed from about April 15 to May 7 as more than 850 workers tested positive for the virus.

Smithfield, owned by China’s WH Group, said it has implemented aggressive measures to protect employees.

“Absenteeism remains a challenge, but we are managing,” the company said in a statement to Reuters. Smithfield declined to disclose its levels of absenteeism.

Sandra Sibert — a 47-year old who works on the plant’s ham bone table and caught the virus — said it is not easy to stay six feet apart in the locker room and cafeteria. Sibert said she grew worried after the plant reopened when a female employee with an infected husband was allowed to work while awaiting her test results.

“I worry about everybody,” Sibert said.

Absences shut plant

Tyson’s Columbus Junction, Iowa plant closed on April 6, when surrounding Louisa County had just six known cases and no deaths. When it reopened on April 21, the county had recorded 215 cases and two deaths. As of May 29, there were 352 known cases and 11 deaths.

Tyson, the top U.S. meat supplier, declined to say how many employees are missing work, but said absenteeism had declined to its lowest percentage since before the pandemic at its Columbus Junction plant and another Iowa plant, in Waterloo.

Tyson had to halt operations at its pork plant in Storm Lake, Iowa in late May — a month after the president’s order to reopen — partly because of “team member absences related to quarantine and other factors,” the company said in a statement. The plant restarted limited operations on June 3.

The company said that 591 workers, or 26 per cent of its workforce, had tested positive. Surrounding Buena Vista county, where many workers live, has one of the nation’s highest infection rates, with 1,257 cases, a fivefold increase over the past two weeks.

Tyson warned in an earnings report last month that worker shortages were expected to contribute to more production slowdowns and plant shutdowns. The company said in a statement that it is continually working to improve safety and social-distancing protocols.

In Kansas, more than 2,900 workers were absent in late April and early May from five plants run by Tyson, Cargill and National Beef Packing Co., according to reports by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

National Beef said it has focused on protecting its employees while running plants to produce meat for consumers.

Worker-safety measures still sometimes came up short, according to CDC officials. They noted in a report, for instance, that “many people” at a National Beef plant in Dodge City, Kansas, were not wearing masks that covered their noses, and that some only wore face shields that would do little to slow the spread of the disease.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tom Polansek in Chicago and Andy Sullivan in Washington, D.C.

The post U.S. meatpacking workers often absent after plants ordered to reopen appeared first on Farmtario.

But Maple Leaf Foods decided to idle a poultry plant for eight days, in Brampton, Ont., after just three workers were infected.

In Canada’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials are mostly leaving decisions on closing meat plants to the companies, even though the authorities have power to do so. Alberta Health Services (AHS), for example, could close a plant with unsafe conditions, spokesman Tom McMillan said.

The impact of such decisions extends beyond plant walls. They are at the heart of Alberta’s two largest community outbreaks, and could foreshadow dilemmas likely to emerge as other industries restart.

Canada’s stance contrasts a more active U.S. political role with infected plants, as close-quarters work has led workers in numerous North American plants to fall ill or walk off the job. President Donald Trump ordered meat plants on Tuesday to stay open, and state and local officials earlier pushed successfully for some to close, including Smithfield Foods’ South Dakota slaughterhouse.

Jon Nash, president of Cargill Protein North America, said Cargill reduced production at its Alberta plant on April 13 and remained open before closing entirely a week later to avoid wasting food, and because ranchers needed a market for cattle.

Factors outside the Cargill plant, such as crowded households and carpooling, contributed to the spread in High River, health officials said.

Cargill said on Wednesday that High River would resume reduced production on Monday (May 4) after a two-week closure for cleaning and additional safety measures.

Cargill’s decision to operate as long as it did before the temporary closure rankled some workers.

“It absolutely pisses me off,” said Jamie Welsh-Rollo, a single mom who seals meat in plastic in the High River plant, and is a United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) shop steward. “We’re looked at as numbers.”

At least eight Canadian meat plants have closed temporarily due to the pandemic. As of Wednesday, 821 Cargill workers at High River, about 37 per cent of the workforce, were infected, including one death.

And Cargill is not alone. A JBS beef plant at Brooks, Alta. slowed production but remains open after 276 infections and one death.

Caution at Maple Leaf

Maple Leaf, in closing its Ontario plant, considered that the city of Brampton itself was a coronavirus hotspot and that the company was short of face masks to supply all 340 workers, said Randy Huffman, its chief food safety officer.

The few initial cases eventually tallied 26 after more testing.

“There were some challenging discussions,” Huffman said in an interview. “We needed to have greater confidence that the plant could operate safely.”

A deadly illness outbreak 12 years earlier due to contaminated meat in a Maple Leaf plant factored in its response, he said.

While Maple Leaf made the decision to close, it consulted widely, Huffman said — with an occupational health doctor, local and federal health authorities.

“I don’t think leaving it up to any one entity is the best outcome.”

In rare examples of Canadian authorities stepping in, British Columbia health regions closed United Poultry on April 21 after 28 cases were found at the Vancouver plant, and shut Superior Poultry on April 24 after two initial cases.

In High River, Welsh-Rollo feared passing the virus to her four-year-old son, who has an auto-immune deficiency, and saw problems with Cargill’s precautions.

Cargill asked health screening questions in English to workers entering the plant, many of whom are immigrants or foreign workers, she said. The 31-year-old plant was too cramped to make distancing measures effective, she said.

Cargill’s Nash said the company has worked closely with AHS on safety protocols, including face masks for workers.

Adrienne South, spokeswoman for Alberta’s labour minister, said multiple ministries helped ensure the plant’s safety but added that “the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is responsible for the plant.”

CFIA said in a statement that it cannot suspend plant operations over coronavirus, since its authority to stop food production over health risks is limited to food safety concerns.

The decisions to prolong operations baffle Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, an institute that analyzes food and agriculture issues.

“I don’t understand why it took so long (to close) at High River and I don’t understand why Brooks is still operating,” he said.

— Rod Nickel is a Reuters correspondent covering the agriculture and energy sectors from Winnipeg; additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago, Allison Martell and Moira Warburton in Toronto and Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa.

The post As meat plant infections rise, Canada lets packers choose when to close appeared first on Farmtario.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency last week announced all on-farm testing has been completed in its probe, which dates back to November 2018 when lab tests confirmed TB in an animal that was traced to a farm in the province’s southern Interior.

Three more TB-infected cattle were later found in that cow’s herd, which has since been “depopulated.” The farm has since resumed operations on parcels where cleaning and disinfection were completed, CFIA said.

The agency’s “trace-out” probe — the phase in which all herds that received animals from the infected herd in the previous five years were tested — followed on 15 other B.C. cattle herds, 22 in Alberta and the one in Saskatchewan, but wrapped up last June with no further cases found.

The “trace-in” part of the probe — to identify animals that may have been the source of the infection — started last fall and ran through the winter, with testing on 20 herds from which animals had been introduced to the infected B.C. herd over the previous seven years.

None of those herds are still under movement controls, CFIA reported last week.

All four infected animals from the B.C. farm carried the same strain of bovine TB, which CFIA previously said is distinct from any cases previously detected in Canadian wildlife or domestic livestock. The strain was unrelated to past cases of bovine TB seen in Alberta, B.C. and anywhere else in Canada.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has also confirmed the strain was never previously identified by its laboratory service, CFIA said.

CFIA also ruled out the unusual strain from its most recent previous investigation — which involved six cattle that were confirmed infected in 2016 from a southern Alberta operation, and led to tests on over 34,000 animals from over 145 farms across the West.

That probe, which cost $42.8 million in compensation for almost 12,000 animals ordered destroyed, plus up to $16.7 million in related AgriRecovery aid, closed in May 2018 with no “definitive” source of infection ever identified.

The TB strain in that case was found only to be “closely” related to a strain seen in cattle in central Mexico in 1997. CFIA said in 2018 it planned to look at “possible entry pathways” from outside the country, to see if “further preventive measures” could be taken.

CFIA has previously emphasized there was no risk to Canada’s food supply or to human health from the B.C. case, and that no part of the index cow ever entered the food chain.

Human exposure to bovine TB can only occur through the passage of fluids from an animal to an open skin sore, through “extended close contact” with an animal with active respiratory TB or by drinking unpasteurized milk from an infected animal.

Bovine TB can lie dormant in infected animals for years without causing symptoms — which is why both the trace-in and trace-out probes checked out animals that could have been in contact with the infected cattle over at least the previous five years. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post On-farm tests wrap up in bovine TB probe appeared first on Farmtario.

Manitoba’s agriculture department reported Friday that clubroot pathotype 3A — a strain that can “overcome some first-generation sources of genetic resistance” in commercial canola — has been positively identified in the south-central rural municipality of Pembina.

Canola varieties that have been traditionally rated as “R” or “resistant” won’t be effective in preventing clubroot infection against 3A, the department said.

Those canolas are tested against pathotypes 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 but aren’t labelled as effective against 3A and 5X, both of which are “breaking-resistance” pathotypes.

Genetic resistance to pathotype 3A can be found in just a “small number “of commercially-available canolas, and those are specifically labelled for resistance to 3A, the department said.

“Outside of Alberta, very few fields have been found to contain novel pathotypes like this, and this is the first finding in Manitoba,” the Canola Council of Canada said in a separate release Tuesday.

“This is yet another cue for the industry to continue to take this disease seriously and implement clubroot management plans,” council agronomy specialist Dan Orchard said in Tuesday’s release.

“We still have an opportunity to get ahead of this disease and limit the impact it has on canola producers and the industry.”

Selection pressure

Caused by soil-borne Plasmodiophora brassicae, clubroot first became established in Canada mainly in vegetable-growing regions of Quebec, Ontario, Atlantic Canada and British Columbia.

Swollen galls appear on roots of a clubroot-infected canola plant, choking off its supply of water and nutrients and forcing it to prematurely ripen, either reducing its yield or killing it. Typical yield losses run around 50 per cent but can run up to nearly 100 per cent in fields under severe clubroot pressure.

The disease’s first appearance in Canadian canola was in Quebec in 1997, but it took until 2003 for clubroot to turn up on the Prairies, in spots near Edmonton.

Clubroot has since landed in thousands of Alberta fields, mainly in central regions but also in the province’s south and its northwestern Peace region, and in canola fields in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and North Dakota.

The first R-rated canola variety was released in 2009, but by 2013, significant clubroot infections began appearing in some Alberta fields seeded to R-rated canolas.

Pathotypes that are virulent against R-rated canolas were found to have been widespread in clubroot-infected areas of Alberta before R-rated varieties were introduced — but those pathotypes had usually been seen only at low levels in the galls on infected, non-resistant canola plants.

Experts say those findings confirm that the virulent strains of clubroot were able to thrive due to selection pressure from the use of R-rated canola.

Of the clubroot pathotypes affecting otherwise-R-rated canola, 5X was confirmed in central Alberta in 2014 — and 3A was found in a study last year to be the “predominant” virulent subtype in fields in that province.

Scouting time

A soil-borne disease, clubroot can be transferred from field to field on soil particles, travelling via footwear, vehicle tires, farm machinery and/or wind or water movement across a landscape.

The long-term sustainability of Prairie canola production will depend on suppression of clubroot infection through effective crop rotation — and rotation of sources of genetic resistance — together with good farm biosecurity, the Manitoba government said Friday.

Even when using resistant varieties, growers need to scout their crops to make sure the resistance they’re using is effective against the pathotypes in their fields and to see if new sources of resistance are needed.

Under high resting spore loads, symptoms can occur after using the same resistance source two or three times, or even sooner, the canola council said.

Producers are “strongly encouraged” to familiarize themselves with clubroot symptoms and start scouting this fall, the council said. Clubroot symptoms are most noticeable late in the season and can still be seen during and after harvest on canola roots.

“It is critically important to limit the pressure we put on resistance by using resistant varieties before spore concentrations are high, extending the break between canola crops and changing up resistance sources if necessary,” Orchard said Tuesday.

“The development of clubroot and discovery of a pathotype that is virulent to the original source of clubroot resistance is concerning to Manitoba canola farmers,” Ron Krahn, a director with the Manitoba Canola Growers Association, said Tuesday.

“We know how important canola is for a profitable crop rotation, which is why we feel the research dollars that MCGA spends every year on current production challenges is money well spent.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Clubroot able to beat resistant canola reaches Manitoba appeared first on Farmtario.

The provincial government on Jan. 7 confirmed the first case of PED to appear in hogs in Alberta, at a 400-head farrow-to-finish operation at an unnamed location.

The PED virus (PEDv) is a coronavirus which, once introduced in a herd, causes vomiting, watery diarrhea and dehydration in infected animals. Mortality rates run up to 100 per cent in infected nursing-age piglets but are much lower in growing hogs, which generally present with milder diarrhea.

“Enhanced biosecurity measures” are now in place on the entire affected premises “to reduce the risk of the virus leaving the site,” the provincial agriculture and forestry ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

No pigs from the affected farm have left the property since the diagnosis, nor have any been marketed to slaughter or assembly sites anywhere in Alberta, and there are “no plans to do so,” the province said.

How the virus might have reached the farm also remains a mystery, the province said. “All pig traffic in and out of the site has been traced and no transport links have been identified as potential sources.”

Furthermore, the province said, environmental surveillance testing from Alberta’s “high-traffic pig sites” is all still negative for PED.

“We’ve been investigating all of the well known sources of infection that have occurred in previous cases, such as transportation and feed and visitors, but to date, all of the transportation links to slaughter, assembly yards and truck washes, all our sampling has come back negative,” Dr. Julia Keenliside, a provincial veterinary epidemiologist in Edmonton, said Wednesday on the Prairie hog industry program Farmscape.

“We’ve looked at any possible contact with Manitoba or the U.S. and we have not found anything there.”

Also, she said, the province’s environmental sampling at other sites has turned up negative to date “and we’ve done tracebacks to all of these sites and we’ve not come up with any obvious links to any positive cases.”

Also, “no other cases of PED have been identified” in the province in the week since the lone outbreak was confirmed, the province said in its statement. So far, Keenliside said on Farmscape, “we believe that no other operations have been exposed.”

The lone hog operation now dealing with PED “reacted very quickly and has worked closely with their farm veterinarian,” she said. “They implemented enhanced biosecurity around the barn fairly quickly as well as traffic control and traffic rerouting on and off of the premises.”

Next up, she said, is the development of a cleanup plan for the property. That includes weighing options on where to market the farm’s animals, to limit risk of spreading the virus.

No pigs will be moved from the farm until a veterinarian’s certificate can be provided, Alberta Pork said in a separate statement Tuesday.

It’s too soon to say how long the cleanup will take, Keenliside said, but added that the experience at affected properties in Ontario and Manitoba has shown it can take several weeks or more.

Meanwhile, Alberta Pork said Tuesday, “all producers are reminded to be diligent with their biosecurity protocols during this critical time.”

Any hog producer who suspects his or her pigs may be infected is asked to contact their farm’s veterinarian “as soon as possible,” the province said Tuesday.

Alberta Pork reiterated Tuesday that while the PED virus affects pigs, it poses no risk to human health, the incident “has not caused any food safety concerns” and pork products “remain safe for consumption.”

Alberta had guarded its PED-free status since the disease was confirmed in the U.S. in mid-2013.

Ontario, where PED made its first Canadian appearance in January 2014, has since seen confirmed outbreaks at 117 hog farms, most recently on Dec. 20, 2018 at a farrow-to-weaning operation in Perth County.

PEDv has also appeared in 107 on-farm outbreaks in Manitoba, nearly all in the province’s southeast, most recently at a finisher barn on Dec. 28, 2018.

Quebec has reported 16 outbreaks since 2014, most recently in the Centre-du-Quebec region in April 2015 but mainly in the Monteregie. Prince Edward Island reported one outbreak in 2015. Saskatchewan has turned up environmental samples of PEDv, but no cases in hogs to date. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Alberta’s PED outbreak so far held to one spot appeared first on Farmtario.