Farms.com
By: Jackie Clark
April 7, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting some food supply chains by necessitating changes in processing-plant operations in an attempt to keep workers safe and healthy.

Processing capacity “is a huge issue for us. Packing plants for the last several months have been operating at capacity and with COVID-19 and social distancing, everyone’s doing their best to be safe and that has had an effect on plants’ capacity,” Eric Schwindt, chair of Ontario Pork, told Farms.com.

Olymel, a pork and poultry production and processing company based in Quebec, announced that it would be closing one of their Quebec pork processing plants for 14 days because of “the growing number of cases of COVID-19 among plant employees, which has reached nine,” a March 29 statement from the company said.

The closure is to prevent further spread of the virus among the nearly 1,000 employees, and give them two weeks to self-isolate before returning to work. The company assured customers that food hygiene and safety was maintained throughout the situation, in a statement released on April 3.

This work stoppage is important from a public health perspective, however, it does add a challenge to the pork industry.

To read the full article please click here.

The CFA is doing a series of surveys each week to monitor how COVID-19 is impacting farmers.

Week of April 6th survey link

NSDA Notice: Soil testing for registered farms

Soil samples will be accepted effective immediately with testing scheduled to begin the week of April 14, 2020.

Minister Blair (Public Safety Canada) released the Guidance on Essential Services and Functions in Canada During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This can be found within the “Food” section here.

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is extending the deadline for livestock feed renewal applications until May 31, 2020, for registrations set to expire on March 31, 2020.

Please read the Notice to Industry for more information

CFIA – Guidance to Meat Slaughter and Processing Establishments on Prevention and Response to Suspect and Confirmed COVID-19 Plant Employees

Please see the below Order by the Medical Officer of Health in relation to transportation of livestock during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was updated March 23, 2020.

Order by the Medical Officer of Health