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By Alice McFarlane

Agriculture Roundup

Agriculture Roundup for Tuesday August 20, 2019

Aug 20, 2019 | 10:39 AM

A fire that shut down a Tyson packing plant in Kansas earlier this month will have an effect in Canada.

Canfax Senior Analyst Brian Perillat said the loss of packing capacity will push prices lower in the U.S. and Canadian prices will likely be affected as well.

CattleFax CEO Randy Blac told the recent Canada Beef Industry conference in Calgary the Tyson plant accounted for six per cent of the total U.S. fed cattle packing capacity.

Blac’s presentation said that if the major plants in the Texas Panhandle, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Iowa replace the Kansas plant’s capacity they would need to slaughter 8.2 per cent more cattle per week.

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The Swine Health Information Center encouraged pork producers to review recommendations pertaining to the disease risks associated with imported feed ingredients.

As part of research being conducted, scientists are looking at the potential risks of exposure to disease.

Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg encouraged producers to ask about feed ingredients from African swine fever areas of the world, where that virus is circulating now, how they promote biosecurity and how they understand and maintain the purity of feed ingredients.

A checklist of questions is available on swinehealth.org. Producers can bring those questions to their feed supplier and ask about the ingredients being used in their feed.

The document was authored by feed experts in allied industries and universities.

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An internationally renowned University of Manitoba plant scientist has been elected a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society.

Phytopathology, or plant pathology, is the study of plant disease, and the society that presented the honour to Dilantha Fernando this month is the premier scientific organization for plant pathologists from around the world.

Fernando is a world authority on blackleg of canola, and was the first to report new races of the blackleg pathogen in North America, Brazil, Hungary and Iran.

His findings enabled seed companies to breed for new sources of resistance, and his expertise played a pivotal role in 2009 when the Chinese government imposed restrictions on canola seed imports from Canada.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF