Reading Time: 4 minutes My son gifts me a subscription to a Quebec-based cuisine magazine entitled Ricardo. The last issue had a little sidebar that read, “If you calculate the time elapsed from the moment seeds are sown, the festive meal takes an average of 295 days to land on our tables.” When you think about great meals in […] Read more
Every item of the feast has a great story behind it
When the table is set, give thanks to those who grew and processed the food — and all those who played a role in its history
From the kitchen to the marketplace
Here are the key steps to consider if you want to sell a product you produce on your farm
Reading Time: 2 minutes What does it take to get a new product from your workshop or kitchen into a buyer’s hands? “Lots of time, patience and attention to detail,” says a provincial new-venture specialist. The first step is to do a self-assessment, said Elaine Stenbraaten. “Are you an entrepreneur? Understand that with a business you start, you assume […] Read more
U.S. Congress repeals COOL on beef, pork
The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have both approved a repeal of the government’s six-year old mandatory country-of-origin labelling (COOL) laws on beef and pork. Tucked into an omnibus appropriations bill put before Congress Friday, the repeal shuts the door on a major irritant in North American trade relations and is expected to curb […] Read more
Composting fastest and cheapest way to deal with deadstock
Reading Time: 2 minutes One of the fastest and cheapest ways to dispose of deadstock is to compost them — and you can even do it in winter. “As soon as your compost heats up to 40 C, it doesn’t smell like a carcass anymore… it’s not,” said Kim Stanford, a beef research scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry. […] Read more
Canada not yet pulling trade trigger on COOL
Canada remains “cautiously optimistic” that the U.S. government will repeal its country-of-origin labelling (COOL) law before the Canadian and Mexican governments impose retaliatory tariffs. Federal Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, speaking Wednesday from Nairobi on a conference call with reporters, said she was “not going to go into hypotheticals” about Canada’s next move if an omnibus […] Read more
N.L. agrifoods file moves to new minister
Newfoundland and Labrador’s Forestry and Agrifoods Agency, which oversees public policy for the province’s livestock, crops and agrifood sectors, is again getting new management. Oversight for the agency, first set up in 2007 by then-natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale, had been moved in March from the natural resources department to the fisheries and aquaculture department. However, […] Read more
U.K. review calls for urgent cuts to antibiotic use in livestock
London | Reuters –– Massive use of antibiotics in farming poses a critical threat to global public health and should be reduced dramatically to an internationally-agreed target, according to a British government-commissioned review. Agreeing and implementing a global target for agricultural antibiotic use won’t be easy, the review, led by former Goldman Sachs chief economist […] Read more
Agriculture is responding to climate change
Warmer oceans and retreating glaciers are being felt at the farm level, but farmers are always moving forward
Reading Time: 3 minutes The following presentation won senior division honours in the Canadian Young Speakers for Agriculture competition at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto last month. A rise of 0.8 over 130 years… Why are we paying attention to such a number? Why does it even matter? Because this rise of 0.8 C is affecting the way the world is fed! […] Read more
WTO dials back Canada’s COOL retaliation
Canada will be able to take only about a third of the revenge it asked the World Trade Organization to authorize over the United States’ country-of-origin labelling (COOL) law. An arbitration panel of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) ruled Monday that Canada and Mexico may now ask the DSB to authorize annual retaliatory tariffs, […] Read more
Maple Leaf to upgrade stunning process, ‘accelerate’ on sow housing
Pledging to upgrade its hog and poultry stunning processes, speed up its timeline on sow housing and step up its game on facility audits, livestock pain management and reduced antibiotic use, Maple Leaf Foods said Friday it’s now set to carve an animal care agenda into formal company policy. The major Canadian meat processor on […] Read more