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august 28, 2014
SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 72, No. 35
Clubroot infections found in Manitoba mild so far
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manitobacooperator.ca
Report sounds alarm for food processing in Manitoba
Keeping this serious canola disease under control requires early detection, which can be revealed through soil testing
Trouble in the pork and potato industries could put a $100-million drag on food processing in Manitoba, a new report says
By Allan Dawson co-operator staff
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lubroot has been detected in 13 Manitoba fields since 2009, but all have been mild infections, says Anastasia Kubinec, oilseed specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (MAFRD). “ W h a t w e’re f i n d i n g i n Manitoba right now is clubroot at very low levels,” Kubinec told the Westman Crop Talk webinar Aug. 20. M A F R D re l e a s e d a m a p Aug. 14 showing the 10 rural municipalities where clubroot, a potentially devastating soil-borne canola disease, has been detected, http://www.gov. mb.ca/agriculture/crops/plantdiseases/clubroot-distributionin-manitoba.html. But what the map doesn’t point out is that 11 of the 13 cases are based on soil samples, not visible symptoms in a canola crop, Kubinec said. “It has been only two fields where we have found symptoms in the field and those symptoms were extremely minor,” she said. “What we are finding in the field pretty much looks like a little pimple on the root of the canola plant. It’s very minor. In one case we actually tested a plant three times to make sure that it was positive.”
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See CLUBROOT on page 7 »
Photo: Thinkstock
By Lorraine Stevenson co-operator staff
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anitoba’s food-processing sector could take a $100-million nose-dive by 2020 if challenges faced by two of its three biggest players — pork and potatoes — aren’t addressed soon. That’s the worst-case or “businessas-usual” scenario laid out in a recent study by the Rural Development Institute (RDI) at Brandon University. Researchers gathered data from Statistics Canada and perspectives from industry leaders on the current and future state of food and beverage processing in the province.
The best-case or “effective-action” scenario sees the entire food-processing sector grow by nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars over the same time frame. It can go either way, according to Food and Beverage Processing Industry – Growth Pathways to 2020 depending on what happens to “the big three” within the sector — pork, potatoes and canola. The three commodities together account for 55 per cent of all annual sales in Manitoba’s food- and beverageprocessing industry, or just over $2.58 billion in 2011. More than half those sales were exports. The outlook for canola processing looks good, although it’s not expected
to expand much beyond 2020, said Gillian Richards, RDI research associate and the lead researcher of the study. “Canola is trucking along fairly nicely, in terms of tonnage, and processing at 100 per cent more or less capacity, and they seem happy,” she said. “They don’t have a shortage of stuff to process or a shortage of people to sell to.” But pork and potatoes face significant challenges. Sales of pork alone are projected to decline by $260 million in annual sales if no solution is found to end processors’ problems associated with operating at undercapacity, the report says. See food processing on page 6 »
STATS: A smaller crop than expected » PAGE 19