Friday January 20, 2012
In This Issue
The general meeting schedule for the CPEPC
POTC and sector meetings being held the week of
Feb. 6 (POTC Feb. 2 & 3) at the Westin Hotel in
Ottawa is available on the
February page of the CPEPC website. Note that
the Top to Top meeting planned for the
morning of Feb. 8 has been postponed. Agendas
and meeting packages will be made available
closer to the meeting dates.
The contracted room rate is no longer available
but the best available rate can be checked at
the
Westin Ottawa main site.
If you have any questions about the meetings
please contact your sector manager or
susanmallet@cpepc.ca.
Members who are at the Westin the
afternoon of Sun. Feb. 5 are invited to watch
Superbowl XLVI in our hospitality suite,
2318.
On November 13, 2011, in a bilateral meeting between
Prime Minister Harper and President Obama on the
margins of the APEC Leaders’ meeting in Honolulu,
Canada formally indicated its interest in joining the
TPP negotiations.
The Government of Canada has published a notice in
the Canada Gazette announcing consultations on
potential free trade agreement negotiations with
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) members. All
interested parties are invited to submit their views
by February 14, 2012. Please be advised that any
information received as a result of this consultation
will be considered as public information, unless
explicitly stated otherwise. Submissions should
include:
- Contributor’s name and address, and if applicable,
his/her organization, institution or business;
- Specific issues being addressed; and
- Precise information on the rationale for the
positions taken, including any significant impact
that it may have on Canada’s domestic or foreign
interests.
The Canada Gazette notice can be found here:
http://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2011/2011-12-31/html/notice-avis-eng.html.
TThese consultations are an opportunity for you to
share relevant information with negotiators,
including with respect to particular products of
export interest, products sensitive to import
competition from TPP member countries (Australia,
Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand,
Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam), or
commercial market access issues you have encountered
in the course of past dealings with TPP member
countries. We strongly encourage you to share any
views or information you have on this matter.
Aimee Beboso
Trade Policy Analyst
Negotiations and Multilateral Trade Policy
Directorate
Telephone: 613-773-0872
Facsimile: 613-773-1755
Room 116, 6th Floor, Tower 5
1341 Baseline Road
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0C5
aimee.beboso@agr.gc.ca
A coalition of livestock and poultry organizations
including the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn.; the
National Pork Producers Council; the Egg Producers of
America; the American Farm Bureau Federation; the
American Sheep Industry Assn.; the National Farmers
Union; the National Turkey Federation; and the
National Milk Producers Federation, sent a letter
urging Congress to "reject additional costly and
unnecessary animal rights mandates proposed by the
Humane Society of the United States."
NCBA Executive Kristina Butts said legislation to
mandate on-farm production practices, like the HSUS
agreement with the United Egg Producers would do,
sets a dangerous precedent to allow the federal
government to set prescriptive production practices.
"While the HSUS-UEP agreement currently only applies
to egg production by amending the Egg Inspection Act,
this legislation could create a very slippery slope
to allow bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., to tell
farmers and ranchers how to raise their animals.
Cattlemen take their responsibility to care for their
animals very seriously and for more than two decades
have voluntarily participated in industry-led,
science-based production practice programs and
initiatives," Butts said.
The coalition pointed to the World Organization for
Animal Health as evidence that mandated prescriptive
production practices are not in the best interest for
promoting animal care. According to the letter, "OIE
has recognized that prescriptive standards, such as
those proposed, are not in the best interest of
promoting true animal welfare because they cannot be
adapted for different farming models and they hinder
efficient modifications as new science becomes
available."
The letter also pointed to European egg production
mandates that have resulted in increased production
costs for producers and higher costs for consumers.
In Germany, a 2010 enriched cage regulation has
resulted in 20 percent less production. Meanwhile, in
Britain, hen housing conversion has increased
operating costs by as much as 8 percent.
"Ultimately, European animal housing requirements
have cost consumers and farmers like. We respectfully
contend that the European experience is not one
American livestock farmers or consumers should want
to replicate," the coalition penned. "While our
organizations continue to make considerable animal
care investments with an eye toward continued animal
welfare improvements, this proposal would stifle the
industry for years to come."
The Farmer's Exchange
NFU Scotland will be urging Commission officials to
learn lessons from the debacle surrounding
implementation of the laying cage ban. No fewer than
14 member states and 14 per cent of EU egg production
failed to meet the deadline when the ban on
conventional cages came into force on 1 January 2012.
The Union will be in Brussels on Monday (16 January)
seeking reassurances from Commission officials that
history won’t repeat itself when Europe’s legislation
banning the use of sow stalls in the pig sector comes
into force at the end of this year. The UK has had a
unilateral ban on sow stalls in place since January
1999.
NFU Scotland’s Pigs and Poultry Chairman, Phil
Sleigh, who will be in Brussels on Monday said:
"Despite having almost a decade to prepare, no fewer
than 14 of our fellow Member States have failed to
fully enforce the Welfare of Laying Hens Directive
and will face legal proceedings in the coming weeks
according to the European Commission.
"Warnings and threats of fines from the Commission
about the consequences of non-compliance have been
largely ineffectual in encouraging many countries to
convert conventional battery cages into enriched
welfare friendly cages on time. The deadline has now
passed and Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece,
Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Malta, Poland,
Portugal, Romania and Spain have all failed to meet
it.
"According to the Commission’s latest figures, more
than 46 million hens are still in illegal
conventional cages across Europe, representing a
staggering 14 per cent of Europe’s egg industry.
Those eggs run the risk of entering the UK and
undermining our producers who have taken on board the
considerable cost involved in compliance. Our
producers deserve legal protection from having their
markets undermined by illegally produced eggs but it
is a huge disappointment that this has, so far, been
undeliverable at a UK or an EU level.
www.thepoultrysite.com
Egg producers in the European Union may struggle to
control Salmonella with the EU ban on battery cages
coming into force this month. Despite data from the
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in 2011 showing
that Salmonella control programmes in laying birds
have been highly successful, Alan Doyle, Business
Development Manager for Anitox says the industry
cannot afford to be complacent.
A recent study in Belgium highlighted the need for
caution. The study found that, compared with
traditional battery cages and furnished cages, aviary
and floor housing systems pose a greater risk.
Bird-to-bird transmission of Salmonella enteritidis
was slightly higher, while a higher number of eggs
were contaminated internally by Salmonella. With this
in mind, Mr Doyle says that Salmonella surveillance
programmes must be optimised. "Existing control plans
must be maintained and care must be taken to minimise
within-flock transmission of Salmonella."
www.thepoultrysite.com
The government has released the final report on
the Weatherill
Recommendations dealing with Listeriosis, entitled
Action on Weatherill Report Recommendations to
Strengthen the Food Safety System: Final Report to
Canadians. It is now available on the Government of
Canada’s food safety portal at
www.foodsafety.gc.ca
or on these pages:
English:
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/transp/prog/finale.shtml
French:
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/francais/fssa/transp/prog/finalf.shtml
or as pdf's:
English pdf
French pdf
The report outlines the Government’s continuous work
to reduce food safety risks, enhance surveillance and
early detection of foodborne pathogens and illnesses,
and improve emergency response as recommended in the
Report of the Independent Investigator into the 2008 Listeriosis Outbreak.
The final report highlights the action taken on all
recommendations, which includes:
- Identifying and fast-tracking the approval of food
safety interventions such as food additives that
reduce the growth of Listeria monocytogenes and other
pathogens.
- Hiring 170 additional full-time inspectors to
increase CFIA’s presence in federally registered meat
processing plants.
- Developing new detection methods for Listeria and
other hazards in food that reduce testing time and
enable more rapid response during food safety
investigations.
- Using innovative laboratory technologies in
outbreak investigations and expanding the outbreak
detection lab network to include public health and
food safety partners across Canada.
- Supporting national public health surveillance to
improve collection, reporting and analysis of a wide
range of health information.
- Providing Canadians, including those most
vulnerable, with the information they need to reduce
the risk of a foodborne illness through a new online
food safety portal and national public information
campaigns.
- Updating the Foodborne Illness Outbreak Response
Protocol, which guides how all levels of government
work together to respond to a national or
international outbreak.
- Ensuring that health risk assessment teams are
available 24/7 to support food safety investigations.
- Building surge capacity in order to respond more
quickly and effectively to potential future foodborne
illness outbreaks.
 In
our December 16th edition we introduced new associate
member Elanco Animal Health. Their product line concentrates on four livestock
therapeutic classes: antibacterials, parasiticides,
anticoccidials, and productivity enhancers, as well
as medicines for pets. Here is some further
information.
How they deliver:
- Provide trusted solutions to problems within the
food supply chain (our source of income)
- Systems that reduce pathogens on carcasses entering
the food chain
- Reducing risk of food borne illness, and increasing
shelf life
- Medicines that fight and prevent disease in the
live phase
- safe, affordable and consistent supply of pork,
beef, dairy and poultry
- Technologies that increase the sustainability of
the global food basket
- One Elanco solution reduces the carbon footprint of
beef production by X% versus organic type practices
- Research and development of novel, patented
solutions (same process as new medicines to the human
medicine business)
- Elanco spends over 100 million dollars annually on
- Sustainability solutions
- Increased sustainability through efficiency
- Welfare
- New and improved medicines and their safe administration
- Food safety
- Minimize risks of contamination, healthy animals,
traceability in our production
- Customized knowledge solutions
-
- Welfare concerns are addressed through Elanco’s
significant investment in capabilities, research and
field outreach on low stress handling of pigs
- Food residue detection and monitoring through our
Assurance Plus monitoring program
Elanco’s headquarters are located in Guelph (Ontario)
for its Canadian activities. For more information please contact:
Stéphane Beaudoin, National Food Chain Manager at:
beaudoin_stephane@elanco.com
or
Tel: 819-469-4271
Marta Haley, Senior Corporate Affairs Representative
at: haley_marta@elanco.com
or
Tel: 613-220-6770
wwww.elanco.com
Next Highlighter will it be
Feb.10
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