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

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Fresh supplies of beef won’t arrive for days, a salesman at the Suning.com-owned Carrefour outlet told Reuters — if then. That’s a big setback for the industry at traditionally one of its busiest times of the year.

“Whether we can get supplies then, and how much, remains a question,” said the sales person, who declined to be identified as he was not allowed to talk to media.

Suning did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China began testing batches of imported chilled and frozen meat and seafood for the coronavirus in June, but significantly ramped up its inspections early this month after port workers in several cities tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

The new measures, which include testing much more product than before and additional disinfection, are raising costs for importers while adding time and layers of red tape in an industry used to working at speed to guarantee freshness.

The move is especially hurting the booming beef trade, worth US$8.65 billion last year and growing rapidly, as some importers cut purchases on rising costs and weaker demand caused by consumers’ coronavirus worries.

Though China says the risk of shoppers catching the virus from chilled foods is low, officials said this week there is still a risk of infection, particularly for handlers who repeatedly come into contact with the outer packaging of imported cold-chain food.

In Tianjin, northern China’s most important port for meat shipments, the trade has come to a virtual halt, after a worker tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this month.

Warehouses were ordered to test all frozen meat before it could be shipped to the market, and no new product can enter, three importers told Reuters.

Three out of five supermarkets in Beijing visited by Reuters this week were short of beef.

A salesperson at Meat Mate, a restaurant and retailer selling chilled Australian beef, said it now needs to place orders three months in advance, instead of one previously, to deal with the delays. Nobody at Meat Mate’s headquarters could be reached for comment.

Now Beijing’s Xinfadi wholesale market, linked to a coronavirus outbreak in June, has also suspended sales and storage of cold-chain and aquatic products, state media reported this week.

Demand dips

Growing concerns about catching COVID-19 from frozen product has dented demand too.

“Orders for imported beef have halved for us as our clients have got concerned about COVID recently,” said a beef trader in Tianjin.

“They ask us when the products were shipped and whether they have been tested when placing the orders. We have been selling lots of domestic products lately,” she added.

Testing and the additional time product sits in warehouses has driven up costs for importers by as much as 200 per cent, traders said.

A beef importer based in southwestern China said he has reduced imports to less than one quarter of the volumes of previous years even as China enters its peak demand season ahead of the New Year and Lunar New Year holidays.

“What if your cargoes get hit (with the virus)? It will be huge trouble. I’d rather import less,” said the importer surnamed Fu.

Slower imports come as China’s domestic pork production recovers from a severe disease outbreak and prices fall from record highs.

With more domestic meat being produced and the local economy also slowing due to the global coronavirus pandemic, beef demand was already taking a hit, said Grace Gao, manager at Goldrich International, a beef importer in Dalian.

Many beef importers have also had to deal with the impact from souring trade relations with key beef supplier Australia.

After cutting back on Australian purchases, Fu is now reducing imports from other origins too, including Brazil, Argentina, and Belarus.

“This year has been really miserable,” he said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Hallie Gu, Beijing newsroom and Dominique Patton.

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Coming out of a Thursday morning meeting with hog producers in Winnipeg, federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced $482,158 from the AgriRisk Initiatives (ARI) arm of the federal/provincial Canadian Agricultural Partnership ag policy funding framework, for a two-year pilot spearheaded by the Manitoba Pork Council.

It’s hoped that with the funding, “we can develop some private sector solutions to mitigate the economic impact of diseases and market fluctuations,” council chair George Matheson said in the government’s release Thursday.

Such a risk management plan, the government said, would go help hog farms “recover from the devastation caused by potential outbreaks of diseases, such as porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED).”

Such a plan, the government said, could also include measures to help producers cover cleaning and disinfection costs “so the producer is able to recover as quickly as possible.”

The idea is “still at the early stages of development,” the government said in a release, but if successful, “we will ensure that the project results will have application to all pork producers in Canada,” Matheson said.

If expanded nationwide, the plan would run on the understanding that “the bigger the pool of participants, the more affordable it would be to individual producers.”

The idea follows the path taken by Canada’s provincial poultry and egg sectors, which Matheson said “has led the way in developing risk management tools for specific diseases that affect their sector” such as avian influenza.

If such insurance were already in place, Matheson said, its main benefit would be in response to future PED outbreaks. Had an affected producer been able to buy in, “it would have helped a great deal, of course, to mitigate the financial loss.”

Manitoba alone has reported 189 on-farm outbreaks of PED, mainly in its southeast, since the disease first arrived in the province in 2014.

As of Feb. 4, 148 of those properties are considered “presumptive negative” for PED, following cleaning and disinfection as well as further testing of the affected herds and surfaces in affected barns, according to the provincial ag department.

In its past outbreaks, Matheson said, the number of pigs lost to PED in the province “was getting close to five per cent” or 400,000 head.

Such a product would be meant to respond specifically to the needs of producers in an outbreak, Bibeau said. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency would cover some of the costs relating to animal losses but “there are a lot of other costs that the farmers would have to face.”

There’s no such insurance product of this kind right now in Manitoba “or, as far as we know, in any significant way, in North America, so it’d be a first,” Matheson said.

The study being funded is meant to create the model to develop such a product, Manitoba Pork general manager Andrew Dickson said. The model would determine the level of premiums and coverage available, “and then we can adjust it to what the market’s prepared to pay.”

The resulting risk management tool, Bibeau added, would need to be “both effective and affordable for producers.”

The idea is to have individual producers buy coverage tailored to their particular operations, Dickson added, but the pork council will also examine the idea of having a product it could buy on behalf of producers “if that’s what they want to do.”

Developers of the Canadian poultry and egg sectors’ insurance products will be helping the council develop its product for the pork sector, Dickson said. “We’re doing it in Manitoba because we need to model something, but the intent is to have it apply to the country as a whole.”

Bibeau and the Manitoba producers at Thursday’s meeting also discussed industry preparation against African swine fever “in case it ever occurs in this country,” Matheson said.

Bibeau noted CFIA has tightened the rules on the import of animal feed from ASF-infected countries, while the Canada Border Services Agency has moved to boost the number of detector dogs to cut the likelihood of illegal entry of pork products.

Federal, provincial and industry officials, she said, are conducting “extensive preparedness exercises to improve co-ordination and response.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) reported Tuesday it has completed on-farm testing of those “trace-in” herds, which include about 15,000 animals in all.

Testing of “trace-out” animals — that is, any animals that left the infected index herd in the past five years — is also “largely complete with no additional cases to date,” CFIA said Tuesday. One trace-out herd remains under quarantine.

According to CFIA, 71 trace-in premises will be tested, including 35 in Saskatchewan, 33 in Alberta and three in Manitoba. So far, 52 trace-in premises, including 25 in Saskatchewan, 24 in Alberta and three in Manitoba, have been released from quarantine.

The remainder of the trace-in premises will be released as laboratory and post-mortem test results are received, the agency said.

The agency’s TB investigation has been underway since September last year, when Canadian officials got notice from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that a cow from Alberta had tested TB-positive at a U.S. slaughter plant.

The trace-in herds in this investigation are being tested to see if they were the source of infection for the six TB-positive animals in question, CFIA said — but the agency reiterated it’s still possible that a source for these specific infections won’t ever be found.

CFIA has depopulated the six infected animals’ index herd, plus the highest-risk herds that co-mingled with the infected herd.

The premises where the infected animals lived have been cleaned and released from quarantine, while four other premises that held co-mingled herds remain under quarantine, with no cattle, until cleaning and disinfection are complete, CFIA said. Agency-approved cleaning and disinfection also require a 45-day waiting period of warmer temperatures.

Once any of those premises is restocked with cattle, CFIA said, it will test the new herds after periods of six and 18 months.

So far in this investigation, CFIA said Tuesday, about 11,500 animals associated with the infected, co-mingled, trace-out and trace-in herds have been destroyed, with compensation paid to their owners. About 26,000 animals have been released from quarantine.

Genetic analysis of the TB strains in the six infected animals showed they were all infected with the same strain, but that it wasn’t the same as any strain ever previously detected in Canadian domestic livestock or wildlife or people.

Rather, CFIA said previously, the strain of TB identified in the six confirmed cows was found to be closely related to a strain first found in cattle in central Mexico in 1997, making it “unlikely” that wildlife is the source of the Alberta outbreak.

The source of a TB infection can be “difficult to identify,” the agency noted — especially with cases that occur far from places where bovine TB is known to be present in wild animals. — AGCanada.com Network

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As of Wednesday, “approximately 50” farm sites, mostly in southeastern Alberta with “approximately five” in southwestern Saskatchewan, are under quarantine and movement controls, affecting about 26,000 animals, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reported.

The number of farm sites released from quarantine has also risen by one since last week, to seven, the agency said.

The quarantined sites include 18 premises where cattle are confirmed to have been exposed to one of the six TB-positive animals. At those sites, which are deemed “infected premises” and are being depopulated of cattle, on-farm testing is now complete, the agency said.

On those 18 premises, the agency said Wednesday, CFIA’s cleaning and disinfection unit will now run assessments, draw up decontamination plans and issue an “order to clean and disinfect” to the property owners.

As for the testing of other cattle under quarantine, CFIA said its labs “will remain open and testing will continue throughout the holidays.”

On-farm testing will be “momentarily paused” between Christmas and New Year’s, however, “recognizing the importance of the holidays and those living and working on farms.”

CFIA emphasized in its statement Wednesday its investigation “is progressing, but the nature of the disease itself means that the investigation will also be lengthy and complex.”

Alberta’s Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier, in a separate statement Wednesday, said he met with affected producers and that “while the investigation has created many challenges for these producers, I continue to be inspired by their resilience during this difficult situation.”

The affected producers, he said, “know how important it is to protect our livestock and markets from disease. Despite the complex challenges involved, they are stepping up to do what’s necessary to ensure the health of Alberta’s and Canada’s animals.”

Carlier acknowledged “many people and organizations who are committed to supporting our cattle producers during this time of financial, logistical, and emotional stress,” adding that federal and provincial officials are “working around the clock to deal with this ongoing situation and provide assistance to farmers.” — AGCanada.com Network

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency reported Tuesday that cleaning and disinfection work were completed June 29 at the two infected turkey farms in Oxford County, and July 8 at the infected Oxford County broiler breeder operation.

Barring any new cases of avian flu nearby, the three quarantines could be lifted 21 days after the cleaning and disinfection, CFIA said.

CFIA’s two avian flu control zones — which limit traffic in birds and farm equipment on and off the infected farms and other farms inside the zone radius — could be removed July 20 and 29 respectively, the agency said.

The first quarantine-free days in both zones would thus be July 21 and 30 respectively, according to the provincial Feather Board Command Centre (FBCC).

Once the quarantines in the control zones are lifted, movement permits and licenses for moving birds in and out of the region “will no longer be required,” according to the FBCC, the emergency response unit for the province’s poultry and egg producer groups.

Small-flock grower placements in the two control zones would also be allowed on July 21 and 30 respectively, the FBCC said.

For the purposes of poultry exports from the region, as per World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) standards, a three-month “enhanced surveillance period” must follow the cleaning and disinfections before southwestern Ontario can be considered free of avian flu.

The three-month surveillance period would run from July 8 until Oct. 8, the centre said.

While there’s no assurance that new cases won’t appear, there have been no new cases seen in Ontario or any other province since the three infections in April.

British Columbia, which saw outbreaks of H5N2 and H5N1 avian flu on farms in the Fraser Valley between December and February, was declared avian flu-free in June.

In the U.S., where 223 farms have been infected with avian flu across 15 states since December, affecting over 48 million birds, the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed no new avian flu cases in almost a month.

During the Ontario outbreak, the FBCC said Wednesday, officials have “gained a new understanding of the many ways the (avian flu) virus can penetrate even the best biosecurity systems.”

The FBCC said it has used that information to begin preparing the Ontario poultry industry against any “potential future incidents.” –– AGCanada.com Network

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The foot-and-mouth among hogs had been limited to the centre of the country until this week but a case has now been confirmed at a farm just 50 km from Seoul in the north of the country.

The outbreak began five months ago, raising fears about food safety. Nearly 23,000 hogs have been destroyed to contain the outbreak, according to a statement from the agriculture ministry on Tuesday.

All the cases have involved a type of the disease that animals are inoculated against in South Korea. The ministry said additional vaccine would be given to farms in affected areas and all farms in the country would be disinfected on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.

The late July outbreak was the first in more than three years but it came as authorities struggled to contain a problem with bird flu, which has pushed up the price of pork as consumers bought alternative meat.

In its statement, the ministry said more than 40 poultry farms, mostly in southeastern provinces, plus a market near the capital had been affected since late September and 526,000 birds had been slaughtered. No humans have been infected.

The livestock disease problems are a big factor behind a jump in pork imports, mainly from the U.S. and Germany. These rose 21 per cent to 328,241 tonnes in the first 11 months of the year from the same period in 2013, South Korean customs data showed.

— Reporting for Reuters by Meeyoung Cho from Seoul.

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