May 27, 2010

Canada's New Brunswick extends farmland programmes

New Brunswick's agriculture department will raise CAD 1 (US$0.95) million in further funding for programmes to help farmers buy "genetically superior" breeding livestock and develop new farmland.

The province's Livestock Genetic Enhancement Initiative has so far resulted in over 3,500 breeding heifers being added or retained in the province's beef herds between April 1, 2007, and March 31, 2010.

"In the beef sector, this has resulted in the rejuvenation and stabilisation of the beef breeding herd," Agriculture Minister Ron Ouellette said.

Beef producers this spring were able to use programme funds to run genetic evaluations and buy "top quality" bulls at the breeding stock auction sale at the Maritime Beef Test Station.

"Since 1967, Nova Scotia has traditionally consigned 60% of the bulls per year to the Maritime Beef Test Station; New Brunswick has consigned 30%; while 10% of bulls were from Prince Edward Island," said Bill Pryor, an Angus producer at Centreville and chair of the New Brunswick Cattle Producers.

But this year, New Brunswick breeders consigned 43% of the bulls. This shift can be attributed to the positive impact of this initiative, and we are extremely pleased that we can count on this support for another year.

"Genetic improvement efforts have also proven successful with swine, sheep, goat, fox and mink farmers," the province said, noting "superior" mink breeding stock has been imported from ranches elsewhere in North America for "significant" improvements in pelt size and quality.

The remainder of the funding goes to the province's Agri-Land Development Initiative, backing activities such as land clearing, consolidation and levelling to boost the land base for crops, allow for "more sustainable" crop rotation and provide more acres for livestock feed crops.