Sask. minister says farm eggs allowed at farmers' markets after confusion
After confusion and concern over proposed food safety changes, Saskatchewan's Minister of Health has announced producers will not be required to grade their eggs when selling directly to Farmers' market consumers.
The directive comes after outcry from egg farmers. They worried proposed amendments to food safety regulations would prohibit them from selling farm eggs at such venues. That was followed by confusion about the province's standing rules.
Executive director Holly Laird of the Regina Farmers' Market (RFM) first sounded alarm bells on behalf of their vendors last week. They said the change would restrict local producers from selling farm eggs at markets as they always have.
A statement posted to RFM's social media channels following the minister's direction said the market is 'pleased' to see the province reconsidering.
'We are thrilled that the ministry has recognized the vital role farmers' markets play in the local food ecosystem,' said the post.
The amendments are to subsection 22 of the Food Safety Regulations Act. The changes are out for public feedback until April 16. The Ministry of Health said the changes are meant to provide clarity to the legislation.
When asked to address concerns they would restrict smaller farmers, the ministry said the changes would not alter any rules for producers, that Saskatchewan was already prohibiting the sale of ungraded eggs at markets.
But Laird said that's not how SHA or health inspectors have been operating. She noted RFM's inspector 'indicated that if the new regulations proceed as proposed, they will no longer be able to permit the sale of farm eggs at our market.
'We have worked closely with our public health inspector, who has approved egg sales at our market for as far back as anyone involved with the organization can remember,' said Laird in an interview last week. 'And my hope is that we may be caught up in an unintended consequence of making these changes.'
Saskatoon Farmers' Market, in an email to the Leader-Post, said it was also watching these regulatory changes closely for the same reason.
The Leader-Post wasn't able to get answers on the conflicting messages. The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) deferred a request asking for the status of the rule changes back to the ministry.
Instead, a statement said engagement on the regulations is 'interested in making sure that we are meeting the public's expectations of food safety protections in this province.'
Pam Miller, of Miller's By-Gone Farms in Whitewood, Sask., said if she were to be barred from selling eggs as a market vendor, it would cut her business by about 40 per cent, and be a loss for both her and the customers who seek farm-fresh eggs each week.
Miller said Saskatchewan only has one egg-grading facility, located in Saskatoon. Due to travel and cost, she said it would be a barrier for farmers with flocks the size of hers to take small batches of eggs there for inspection.
'I'm allowed to sell those very same eggs to the public from my farm, so this is not a food safety issue at all. It's a government bureaucracy issue,' she said. 'If we're pushing for more local sales, for supporting local farmers, this is going in the opposite direction.'
RFM is now asking the Ministry of Health to write the minister's exemption formally into the Food Safety Regulations, in order to 'ensure ungraded farm eggs remain protected.'
'We want clear assurance that our small farmers and farmers' markets will be safeguarded under the new regulations,' said RFM's post.
lkurz@postmedia.com
Alberta's red tape blocks trade for Saskatchewan farm retailer, as U.S. tariff threats continue
Regina Farmers' Market says move to Confederation Park is a 'full circle moment'
The Regina Leader-Post has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe. With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark leaderpost.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
4 days ago
A pregnant brain-dead woman in Georgia was kept on life support. Experts say it raises ethical, legal questions
Adriana Smith, a 31-year-old Georgia nurse and mother, was just eight weeks pregnant when she was declared brain dead in February after suffering a medical condition. However, the family claims the hospital told them legally she had to be kept on life support to allow the fetus to grow due to the state's strict abortion law. Her family alleges they were not allowed a say in whether to continue her care, according to local Atlanta station 11Alive. Last week, Smith's baby was born by emergency Caesarean section, weighing under 2 pounds and needing care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), reported 11Alive. Smith's family did not respond to ABC News' request for comment. In a statement to ABC News, Emory Healthcare, the health care system Emory hospitals fall under, said its staff makes medical recommendations for patients using many factors. "The top priorities at Emory Healthcare continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients and families we serve. Emory Healthcare uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature and legal guidance to support our providers as they make medical recommendations," the statement read. "Emory Healthcare is legally required to maintain the confidentiality of the protected health information of our patients, which is why we are unable to comment on individual matters and circumstances.' The case has captured national attention and raised numerous legal and ethical questions about medical consent; who should get to make decisions for permanently incapacitated people, especially when pregnant; and whether abortion laws are further complicating pregnancy care. "This is a case that reflects the confusion in the post-Dobbs-era," Michele Goodwin, the O'Neill professor of constitutional law and global health policy at Georgetown Law, told ABC News, referencing the Supreme Court decision that resulted in the overruling of Roe v. Wade. "Because the hospital believed that it could not allow this brain-dead woman to simply be deceased because the state has a very strict abortion law, they believe that they needed to do all matters possible to keep the fetus alive," she continued. What happened to Adriana Smith? Smith, who was 30 at the time, went to Northside Hospital in metro Atlanta in early February after developing severe headaches, her mother, April Newkirk, told 11Alive. Newkirk said Smith was given medication and sent home. She was not given a CT scan and not kept overnight for observation, according to Newkirk. Northside Hospital did not immediately return ABC News' request for comment. Newkirk said Smith's boyfriend woke up to her daughter gasping for air and she was taken to Emory Decatur -- and then Emory University Hospital -- where a CT scan showed multiple blood clots in her brain, according to 11Alive. She was declared brain dead on Feb. 19. The family told the local station that doctors allegedly said they were legally obligated to keep Smith on life support until the fetus was viable. "I think every woman should have the right to make their own decision," Newkirk told 11Alive. "And if not, then their partner or their parents." Newkirk said the family might not have chosen to end the pregnancy, but not having the decision because of the law added to their trauma, reported 11Alive. How does Georgia's abortion law play a role? In 2019, Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law Georgia's so-called heartbeat bill, known as the LIFE Act. The law prevents abortions from being performed once fetal cardiac activity can be detected, which typically occurs at about six weeks' gestation -- before many women know they're pregnant -- and redefines the word "person" in Georgia to include an embryo or fetus at any stage of development. The ban was initially blocked in court but was reinstated after the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022. In September 2024, a state judge ruled that the ban was unconstitutional, but it was reinstated one week later by the Georgia Supreme Court. Goodwin said the act does not explicitly state that a deceased pregnant patient must be kept tethered to mechanical ventilation and there is no legislative history suggesting this was the intent of legislators who wrote the law. Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, believes the hospital could have misinterpreted Georgia's abortion law. "What happened had nothing to do with abortion," Caplan told ABC News. "[The hospital] said they felt they had their hands tied. They couldn't do anything. They might break the abortion laws. Stopping care on a dead body that's pregnant is not an abortion. It just isn't. There is no way it can be." Thaddeus Pope, a law professor and bioethicist at the Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, agreed, saying if the family had declined continuing organ-sustaining treatment for Smith, it would not qualify as an abortion. "Yes, it would cause the death of the fetus, but that would not have been the goal or the intent or the motive, and that's a requirement under the definition of an abortion in the state of Georgia," he told ABC News. He added that Emory health care professionals may have been worried about turning off life support due to the "fetal personhood" section of the act. In a statement to 11Alive in May, the Georgia attorney general's office clarified that the act did not require Emory to keep Smith on life support. The office did not return ABC News' request for comment. Who gets to make medical decisions? Typically, hospitals follow advance directives, which are legal documents in which individuals outline instructions for medical care if they become unable to make decisions for themselves. If the individual does not have an advance directive, decisions on medical care generally fall to next of kin, such as a spouse, adult children or parents. It is not clear if Smith had an advance directive, but it likely would have been inapplicable because she was declared legally dead. In he absence of a directive, the decision on care should have fallen to a family member, according to Caplan. "There's no ethical justification for making unilateral decisions about what happened to Ms. Smith," Caplan said. "The family should have been involved to the extent to which they were capable of doing it." He said if the family felt too overwhelmed, then the next step would be getting a judge to appoint an independent guardian who can make decisions, adding, "You don't have the hospital staff do it." Pope said that under the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care Act of 2007, a pregnant patient cannot be removed from life-sustaining treatment if the fetus is viable, even if there is an advanced directive request the removal. However, he said this would not apply to Smith because she was declared brain dead. Goodwin said she believes the landscape in a post-Dobbs America means more cases like Smith's are likely to occur and there will be confusion over what treatment to provide. Many state abortion laws have criminal penalties against medical providers, doctors, nurses or hospitals that perform abortions, which leads to providers being overly cautious, she explained. "So, what were the gold standards of treatment have now been put to the sidelines, as there is just simply confusion and a sense that better to not provide services, better to keep a person on ventilation who's brain dead than to act according to medical training and ethical training," Goodwin said. Caplan said there are ethical concerns raised about maintaining artificial breathing and heart function for Smith to help the fetus grow. [moved up] "The baby was incubated in a dead body. Is that normal?" he said. "Did the baby get enough oxygen, nutrients from a dead body Sadly, I'm not yet convinced that just because a baby has been delivered that the outcome is going to be good." Whether the family decided they did or did not want to keep Smith alive to save her baby, the choice should have been theirs, Pope said. "Arguably that same choice that would have been presented to the pregnant patient herself should be presented to the pregnant patient's substitute decision-maker," he said. Is there an obligation to keep the fetus alive? Newkirk told 11Alive doctors told the family that Smith's baby had a build-up of fluid in the brain and there were concerns of health issues including a risk of blindness or not being able to walk. "This decision should've been left to us. Now we're left wondering what kind of life he'll have -- and we're going to be the ones raising him," she told the station. Although doctors were hoping to keep Smith alive up until 32 weeks gestation, an emergency C-section was performed at 25 weeks gestation. It's unclear why the emergency C-section was needed. Baby Chance was born weighing 1 pound and 13 ounces and will require NICU care, according to 11Alive. A legally dead pregnant patient being kept on life support for so long is very rare. A 2014 review found most documented cases show gestation being prolonged by two to six weeks in legally dead pregnant patients. Additionally, a systematic review from German researchers found 30 such cases in medical literature between 1982 and 2010. Of those cases, just 12 viable infants were born and survived the neonatal period, which is the first 28 days of life. "I think there's a lot of lessons about the impact of abortion and fetal personhood laws," Pope said. "I think this is an extreme example that shows the impact is far wider than just preventing a so-called traditional abortion, and I think it adversely impacts the health care of pregnant women."
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Labour welfare reforms threaten to backfire as benefit claims hit record high
Disability benefits have surged by 200,000 claims ahead of Labour's plan to scale back eligibility rules, official figures show. Figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show there were 3.74 million people in England and Wales claiming personal independence payment (Pip) as of April this year. Pip is the main non means-tested benefit for those with disabilities, with payments of up to £9,500 a year to help people with living costs. Around £3bn a year of the support is paid to people with mental health conditions, such as ADHD. The figures come as Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is expected to announce cuts to Britain's ballooning benefits bill which continues to hit record levels. The number of successful Pip claimants has jumped by 2pc since the start of the year, 5.6pc in the past 12 months and 77pc since 2019. The benefit has spiralled since lockdown, and is on course to climb from £15bn in 2019-20 to £36bn in real terms by the end of the current Parliament. Official figures show mental health conditions have driven a substantial share of the increase in claims since lockdown, with one in four working age Britons now classed as disabled. Claims for mental health problems is set to cost taxpayers £3.5bn this year. The bill has alarmed ministers and officials, who are poised to introduce a £5bn welfare cut on Wednesday in the face of mounting criticism from backbench Labour MPs. It comes after it emerged face-to-face assessments for disability benefit claims have collapsed to a record low under Labour. Official figures show that more than 80pc of Pip assessments conducted before the pandemic were in person. However, this dropped to a record post-Covid low of less than 2pc in September last year, when just 1,270 of 74,000 assessments were carried out face-to-face. Ms Kendall said last month: 'With Pip caseload and costs forecast to continue rising, reforms are needed now to make the system sustainable, while supporting those people with the greatest needs.' The changes to the welfare system include stricter eligibility for claiming Pip, and reducing payments for new claimants of the health element of Universal Credit. The age group most likely to claim Pips is the 60 to 64 age bracket, with 514,392 successful claimants, according to the DWP. In a report published earlier this year, the DWP reported that £6.5bn of its total benefits outlay was lost to fraud last year. Government figures show that 2,235 benefit payments were sent abroad. Elsewhere, new figures show the number of benefit claimants provided with cars from the Motability scheme has rocketed by 97,000 in the past year. Motability Operations, which previously admitted to finding thousands of cases of abuse of the taxpayer-subsidised scheme, provides cars to disabled people in exchange for a portion of their benefits. The scheme, which is not run by the Government, has come under intense scrutiny amid concerns about its spiralling cost. It accounted for one in five of all new cars bought in the UK last year, with the customer base now standing at 860,000. The Department for Work and Pensions was approached for comment.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Scientists Discover Startling Trick to Defeat Insomnia
Insomnia is a curse we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy — and scientists have discovered a startlingly simple lifestyle change that appears to be very statistically effective at preventing it. In a new study published in the journal Sleep Health, researchers from Columbia and the University of Chicago report that eating a full day's serving worth of fruits and vegetables strongly appears to help people sleep more soundly throughout the night. Interrupted sleep, which is known as "sleep fragmentation" to researchers, has been found to induce a litany of grim health outcomes ranging from heart failure to diabetes and cognitive problems to cognitive dysfunction. One major culprit might be a familiar one to many participants in our industrial food system: poor nutrition lacking in fresh fruits and veggies. The researchers recruited 34 healthy young adults with an average age of 28 years old who had no known sleep issues before. The participants were tasked with tagging their food input into an app for 201 days, and wore wrist monitors that tracked their sleep throughout. After analyzing the data from the app and wrist monitors with statistical modeling, the researchers found that sleep quality can improve up to a staggering 16 percent after eating five cups of fruit and vegetables — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's definition of a full day's serving — as compared to a diet that lacks produce. What's more, the effects were effectively instantaneous: sleep improvements took place the very same nights that participants reported eating lots of fruits and vegetables. "It's remarkable that such a meaningful change could be observed within less than 24 hours," explained UChicago sleep expert Esra Tasali said in the school's press release. Though 16 percent may not seem like much, Tasali characterized it as a "highly significant difference." It's possible, per Columbia's statement on the study, that the amino acid tryptophan — the same one cited in anecdata about getting sleepy post-Thanksgiving turkey — might be responsible. Fruits and vegetables contain carbohydrates that help the brain absorb tryptophan, Columbia explains, which in turn helps aid the production of the sleepy hormone melatonin. Though you can purchase synthetic melatonin supplements at the store, it's tastier and healthier to get your brain to produce it for you by eating produce. Five cups may seem a bit daunting, but the researchers insist that eating more fruits and vegetables in general can help you sleep better even if you don't reach that full serving. "People are always asking me if there are things they can eat that will help them sleep better," author Marie-Pierre St-Onge, the director of Columbia's sleep center, said in the school's press release. "Small changes can impact sleep. That is empowering — better rest is within your control." More on sleep: You Can See When Elon Musk Actually Sleeps by Analyzing His Tweets, and It's Terrifying
