Canadian Meat Council gets new president

May 12, 2015

Announcement came during annual conference in Ottawa, Ontario

There’s a new president of the Canadian Meat Council (CMC) for 2015-2016 and their name is Joe Reda.

Mr. Reda, who last year served as First Vice President, will take over for Henry Mizrahi, who served as president for 2014-2015. The announcement was made during the CMC’s 95^th annual conference held in Ottawa, Ontario.

Mr. Reda is the Co-CEO and co-owner of Viau Food Products Inc., which was founded in 1977 and has two operations in Quebec – one in Montreal and one in Laval.

As president of the Canadian Meat Council, he will help lead the organization in advocating “for the needs of its members to secure and improve Canada’s global meat competitiveness.”

One of Mr. Reda’s first orders of business will be to influence the government to help Canada cement their participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Import and export

“The Canadian Meat Council calls on all political parties in Canada to step up to the plate and acknowledge the pivotal importance for Canada of maintaining competitive access to international markets for Canadian agriculture and agri-food products,” said Reda.

The TPP is a free trade agreement consisting of the following 12 countries: Canada, the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

The nations account for 40% of the world’s economic output and more importantly, about 77% of Canada’s meat exports.

Canada’s meat exports to other TPP countries in 2014 were:

$94 million to Australia
$41 million to Chile
$340 million to Mexico
$25 million to New Zealand
$6 million to Peru
$2.8 billion to the United States

Join the conversation and tell us your thoughts about Canada’s potential involvement in a Trans-Pacific Partnership. Are you encouraged that the market for Canadian meat appears strong?

Video: New colours and more durability for Case IH RB6 round balers

Farmers will see a new look and more efficiency and durability from Case IH's RB6 Series variable chamber round balers for model year 2026. In this report from the Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois, Case livestock product specialist Brian Williams notes that the first thing farmers will notice is a new colour scheme. "For the tailgate, the frame, and also the pickup, we've changed to our Case IH red colour. One of the really nice things about changing that colour scheme is that you're able to see that crop flowing into the baler much better from the tractor." There's also changes to the pickup with the addition of a second roller. "On the 566 model, you can get it with the double windrower roller," says Williams. "For our customers that are baling corn stalks or large windrows, it helps to push that windrow down to let that feed into the chamber, so that they're able to bale a little bit faster, because everyone's looking for better efficiency." There are also modifications to the rollers in the bale chamber — the stripper roll and the fixed roll have been combined into a one-piece roller. "There's no welds on those rollers, so the dependability is going to be far greater than our previous model," adds Williams.