Good day and welcome to the Sprout, where it’s National Snack Day. Healthline is here to help you out, with 29 health snacks that can help you lose weight.
Here’s Wednesday’s agriculture news.
The Lead
Canadian National Railway faces a backlog of 10,000 carloads of grain due to rail blockades set up in February by protestors opposed to the Coastal GasLink pipeline.
Activists showing their solidarity for the Wet’suwet’en people disrupted passenger and freight traffic last month in an attempt to stop TC Energy Corp’s project from being built across their land.
“In the case of CN we lost the equivalent of 10,000 carloads, or roughly one million tonnes,” Chief Executive Jean-Jacques Ruest told Reuters in an interview. “Of all the supply chains the one that will take the longest (to recover) is the grain export.”
Around Town
MPs are away from the House on a one-week break from sitting this week.
In Canada
The Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate by 50 basis points on Wednesday in response to what it described as “material negative shock” to the outbreak of the coronavirus.
The bank lowered its target for the overnight rate to 1.25 per cent, down from 1.75 per cent. The last time the bank announced a rate cut was in 2015. The move comes a day after G7 finance ministers and central bankers pledged co-ordinated action in response to the outbreak. The U.S. Federal Reserve cut its key rate by 50 basis points yesterday. The Globe and Mail has more details.
Internationally
China has rolled out cash support to both domestic and foreign airlines to encourage them to restore services and stop suspending flights during the coronavirus outbreak, a move which will help a sector under pressure amid the coronavirus epidemic. Data from Cirium showed the number of flights to, from and within China that had been cancelled or removed from schedules totalled 347,414 from Jan. 24 through Feb. 27. For every available seat kilometre, Beijing will award $0.0025 for routes that are shared by multiple carriers, reported Reuters.
Britain is optimistic about reaching an agreement with the EU over future fishing rights by July as it is not asking for anything extraordinary, environment minister George Eustice said. The two are in talks as the British government seeks a separate agreement on fishing that sets out a process for annual negotiations on total catch, while the EU wants continued reciprocal access to British waters and longer-term stable fishing quotas, with a deal on fisheries by July 1, reported Reuters.
A new investigation has linked the world’s biggest meat company, JBS, and its rival Marfrig, to a farm whose owner is implicated in one of the most brutal Amazonian massacres in recent memory.
On 19 April 2017, nine men were brutally murdered after squatting on remote forest land in the state of Mato Grosso. Prosecutors charged Valdelir João de Souza, saying he had ordered the massacre. Though he’s since been a fugitive, two adjacent areas of land were registered in de Souza’s name in April 2018, according to an article from The Guardian. You can find the initial story by Repórter Brasil here.
Noteworthy
Kicker
One Facebook user received a bit of a shock after learning the succulent she’d been diligently washing for two years was actually a fake.
“I put so much love into this plant! I washed its leaves. Tried my hardest to keep it looking its best, and it’s completely plastic! How did I not know this? I pull it from the container it’s sitting on Styrofoam with sand glued to the top!” Caelie Wilkes posted to Facebook, according to Fox News.
Honestly, same.
Have a great day.
