Brenda Schoepp

Reading Time: 3 minutes The Alberta Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) recently released a workbook entitled Biosecurity in Practice. Designed for veterinarians, it includes recommended actions for livestock producers that would ensure biosecurity on their farms. For livestock operations, the three pillars of biosecurity are access management, animal health management and operational management. Access management is basically controlling who can […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes In the past few weeks, I have been asked to give several presentations on the state of the beef industry a report card, so to speak, on how we are doing within both the global arena and the domestic market. What I have to say may surprise you. The beef industry in Canada is not […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes Technology has opened the borders of the world, allowing everyone to visit and do business in almost every corner of the Earth. From Internet advertising and promotion to social media, there is an opportunity to reach a variety of potential clients in seconds. Agriculture has been a bit guilty of traditionally looking at life and […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes For the fashionable, there is a big difference between designer jeans and a pair of denim pants. Although the fabric, which is cotton, may be the same in both, it is the style and the status of the designer jeans that makes them more sought after. In other words, the sale is driven by the […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes As I write this in mid-August, the World Bank has just issued dire warnings regarding economic instability worldwide. The events in Europe and in the United States have spurred huge swings in investor confidence. So, what did happen anyway and why do we care? In Europe, the shift to one currency, the euro, set the […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes China’s attempt to crack down on illegal food additives is being met with somewhat poor results, even though offenders face the death penalty if convicted. Pork continues to glow in the dark, hair is made into soy sauce, and fish are fed birth-control pills. The lack of a controlling agency equivalent to the Canadian Food […] Read more

Reading Time: 2 minutes Two stories have recently inspired me to think about the role we play in our communities. The first wasMaking it Matterin the JuneReader’s Digest.Ontario middle and high school students pair up with senior citizens who live in the community and through the course of several weeks they compose a song, create a memoir, or stage […] Read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes Basis is the difference in the price of Canadian cattle and American cattle, expressed in Canadian dollars. There is a basis for both fed and feeder cattle. The western cash-to-cash basis on fed cattle usually compares Nebraska and Calgary. It takes into account the value of Canadian currency on the “spot,” which means at that […] Read more