Reading Time: 2 minutes Five Alberta researchers have been awarded $2 million “to tackle the growing threat” of chronic wasting disease in the province. Two of the projects focus on developing vaccines, including one to prevent the potential spread of CWD to caribou. Three other projects are on transmissibility: The threat of cervids (such as deer and elk) transmitting […] Read more
Hunt is on for a vaccine to halt fast-spreading chronic wasting disease
About 15 per cent of mule deer are infected and it’s feared the disease could jump to livestock
Floods didn’t hit exports but transport woes are mounting
Exports are way down but grain movement is still slow two months after lines reopened
Reading Time: 3 minutes Although it’s been one crisis after another since last summer, the grain sector is seeing some small positives on the export front. One is that rail disruptions caused by flooding in B.C. in November didn’t have a big impact on servicing our wheat customers, attendees at a recent webinar on new-crop sales were told. The […] Read more
Crystal balls are especially wonky, so watch your news feed
There’s been so much upheaval on every front, watchlists are replacing predictions
Reading Time: 2 minutes Farm Credit Canada is steering clear of predictions and instead offering producers a short list of things to monitor in 2022. The pandemic, weather disasters, supply chain disruptions, labour issues and the reappearance of inflation are among the many things that are making “trends increasingly difficult to forecast,” FCC said in a recent release. But […] Read more
Deere predicts driverless equipment heralds a new future
Farm equipment giant will sell a few autonomous tractors this year and then begin scaling up
Reading Time: 3 minutes Only a handful of its new autonomous tractors will hit fields this year, but John Deere is portraying the self-driving machines as the future of farming. Feeding a growing population and dealing with labour shortages are two key reasons — but farmers themselves may be an even bigger factor in propelling the adoption of autonomous […] Read more
Yield contest aims to make every grower a winner
Ontario and two American states launch their version of Yield Enhancement Network
Reading Time: 4 minutes A wheat-growing competition that started in the U.K. has crossed the Atlantic with the promise of helping farmers increase their yields. Started by a British agricultural consultancy a decade ago, a Yield Enhancement Network — or YEN — uses an annual competition as a learning tool by having participating farmers share field data. Computer modelling […] Read more
Beef research council aims to inform, and challenge producers
Not surprisingly, drought figured heavily in Beef Cattle Research Council’s top articles of the year
Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s no surprise that drought was the most common theme when the Beef Cattle Research Council put together a list of its Top 10 blogs for 2021. The website of the council was, after all, created to help producers “make informed decisions about their production practices” and so half of the Top 10 articles offered […] Read more
They don’t walk down red carpets, but they’re truly stars
Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s the time of year when people who are already very famous are given awards in big splashy ceremonies. But while the Oscars, Grammys and the rest are a lot of fun, the really important people in our communities are the ones who quietly make contributions at the grassroots level. There are, of course, more […] Read more
Gross revenue tally provides ‘interesting’ take on drought impact
If you had average yields and captured high fall prices, your per-acre revenue might have gone up
Reading Time: 2 minutes It won’t be of any comfort for those who had a wreck this year, but high prices mean gross revenue for most crops may have been as good or better for some compared to last year, according to a provincial market analyst. “Using the average yields and prices, there is a significant offset of the […] Read more
After a year like this, boring never looked so good
We’ve been whipsawed by one event after another, so a return to normal would be a gift
Reading Time: 4 minutes Sometimes you can judge a year by how long it seems to have lasted. This one seems to have gone on forever. It feels like an eon ago when COVID-19 vaccines arrived (the first dose, outside of a clinical trial, was actually administered on Dec. 8, 2020 to a British grandmother named Margaret Keenan). Back […] Read more
The next farming frontier: an industrial park in Calgary
Indoor farm operation backed by McCain Foods will produce a million pounds of leafy greens annually
Reading Time: 2 minutes Alberta has never seen a farm like this: small but big; pesticide free but also bug free; using just a small fraction of normal water use; and with half the workers bearing titles such as “automation technician” or “data architect.” Site work is already underway for construction of a 74,000-square-foot indoor vertical farm that GoodLeaf […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
