Reading Time: < 1 minute Alberta Farmer journalists Alexis Kienlen and Jennifer Blair both picked up awards from the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation for their reporting in 2020. They were among a host of Albertans who had their work recognized by the association, which represents more than 300 agricultural journalists, broadcasters and communication professionals from across Canada. Kienlen won the […] Read more
Alberta Farmer reporters garner awards
New edition of beef mentorship program underway
Program key to boosting research impact at a farm level, says beef research council
Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s an all-Alberta lineup in the latest edition of the Beef Researcher Mentorship Program. Four researchers working in the province have been paired with eight mentors from the province’s beef sector in the Beef Cattle Research Council program. But it’s not geography, but rather upping the research benefits for all Canadian producers that matters, said […] Read more
Finding treasure by taking a deep dive into cow-calf production data
Cost of Production Network opens a window on how producers like you spend and make money
Reading Time: 3 minutes An effort to create apples-to-apples benchmarking for cattle producers has released its results from 2020 — and has also issued an appeal for more producers to join the Canadian Cow-Calf Cost of Production Network. “The purpose of the network is to produce benchmarks for different production systems found across Canada,” a newly released Canfax video […] Read more
Ottawa’s farm aid pledge didn’t come with the details
Last-minute announcement committed $500 million but program specifics have to be hashed out
Reading Time: 3 minutes They cut it close, but federal Liberals came through on their pledge to kick in their share of disaster funding for hard-hit livestock producers. However, the last-minute announcement means federal bureaucrats will have to work out the rules and procedures for emergency aid from the AgriRecovery program. Read more: Drought relief payments to start flowing […] Read more
New grazing stewardship program for 6,000 Prairie acres
Program has a component to help ranchers adopt multi-paddock grazing and regenerative agriculture
Reading Time: 3 minutes After growing its acres by 20 per cent last year, ALUS has lined up two big sponsors for a new initiative called Grazing Forward that will fund stewardship projects on 6,000 acres of Prairie ranchland. “A&W Canada and Cargill will together provide $1.8 million to support ranchers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba as they continue to […] Read more
Alberta stakes its claim as a solar energy power
Vulcan County to be home to country’s largest solar farm as big corporations go green
Reading Time: 2 minutes Vulcan County will soon be home to the country’s largest solar farm — with the world’s largest online retailer buying most of the power from the 465-MW facility. The Travers solar farm, to be built eight kilometres southwest of Lomond, will occupy 3,300 acres of cropland. It will be built by Greengate Power Corporation, a […] Read more
The value of Alberta farms shoots up again
Rising land prices – fuelled by higher crop prices – up by $8 billion but debt also rose in 2020
Reading Time: 2 minutes You’re richer than you think — and you owe more, too. That could be the theme of StatsCan’s latest snapshot of farm equity, the number you get when subtracting farm debts from the value of assets. If you had put all of the assets of every farm in Canada on the auction block at the […] Read more
A great year for the bottom line of grain farmers
Farm income rose by half a billion in Alberta last year — although our neighbour did even better
Reading Time: 3 minutes Farm income in Alberta took a hefty jump last year, but nothing compared to our next-door neighbour. Net cash income rose by 15 per cent in Alberta to $3.9 billion, which is a $447-million increase from 2019. But in Saskatchewan, net cash income skyrocketed to $6.4 billion — a whopping 78 per cent increase of […] Read more
Fee cuts by grain commission not enough, say Alberta farm groups
Some are hailing the reduction of inspection fees for grain exports, but not Alberta’s cereal commissions
Reading Time: 4 minutes The Canadian Grain Commission is slashing the contentious fees it charges for grain inspection — but Alberta’s cereal groups say that just shows the system is “fundamentally flawed.” The grain commission says reducing inspection and weighing fees will cut the cost of exporting grain by nearly $14 million in the next crop year and more […] Read more
W.A. Grain & Pulse Solutions placed in receivership
About 100 farmers are known to be owed money, any others must make a claim quickly
Reading Time: 3 minutes A court has ordered prominent Alberta pulse buyer and processor W.A. Grain & Pulse Solutions into receivership. Justice Douglas Mah of the Court of Queen’s Bench issued the order on April 26 at the request of ATB Financial and appointed BDO Canada as the receiver. W.A. Grain & Pulse Solutions, founded by Chris and Tracey […] Read more
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