FBC Staff

New oil extraction technology proposed by a Toronto processing firm is expected to create a higher-protein byproduct from the canola it says it plans to crush somewhere in Saskatchewan. Bio-Extraction Inc. (“BioExx” for short) says its new technology will allow it to save the soluble proteins from canola meal that are lost to high heat […] Read more

The federal government’s ecoABC initiative will provide $5.05 million toward a northwestern Saskatchewan ethanol plant project, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz announced today. North West Terminal, an farmer-owned inland grain terminal company at Unity, southwest of North Battleford, announced the 25-million-litre-per year project in mid-summer 2006 and plans to have it running in September 2008. The […] Read more

The Canadian Wheat Board will offer Prairie grain farmers the option to download podcasts of analysis and crop outlooks to hear on their home computers or portable MP3 players. (Podcasts are downloadable radio-style broadcasts available from a number of web sites. The name came from their introduction on iTunes, the online music store operated by […] Read more

A licensing regime for biofuel makers, new fuel quality standards and mandated biodiesel sales will be pumped into a package of biofuels legislation coming back to the Manitoba legislature, the province announced today. The Biofuels Amendment Act, which sputtered before the assembly shut down for this summer’s provincial election, proposes the licensing system, fuel standards […] Read more

Harvest was two-thirds complete in Alberta as of Sept. 27, despite cool weather and sporadic rain provincewide, according to the provincial Agriculture Financial Services Agency (AFSC). The harvest stood at 65.2 per cent complete that week, up from 38 per cent on Sept. 13. Yields are projected to continue declining on remaining crops but are […] Read more

A fertilizer industry group’s survey found farmers pay close attention to the costs of fertilizer and supplements and base their buying decisions on “perceived benefit and availability.” The Canadian Fertilizer Products Forum survey, conducted in April by Ipsos Reid, found that of the 400 farmers surveyed, about half cited price as the main reason for […] Read more

A number of Stella Artois bottles filled with concentrated alcohol strictly for display were the cause of a tampering scare in July, the brand’s brewer announced today. Toronto’s Labatt Breweries said its investigation found that the affected bottles were meant for display purposes and were supposed to be mounted inside Plexiglas casings. For display purposes, […] Read more

A $1.27 million ecological goods and services (EG&S) pilot project to reduce blue-green algae in Missisquoi Bay will fund about 60 farmers in the area to cut down on phosphorus entering the watershed. Missisquoi Bay, south of Montreal on Quebec’s border with Vermont, has become a “laboratory” in recent years for studying phosphorus mobility in […] Read more