Canada has won high praise from a senior official with the United Nations’ World Food Programme for becoming one of the first countries to make its minimum pledge to annual food aid up front in a new international treaty. "Canada is one of the strongest supporters of the World Food Programme," said Pedro Medrano Rojas, […] Read more
WFP hails Canada for leadership role in food security pact
A penny a plant — back to the future in weed control?
Alternatives Researchers call for greater crop rotational diversity and more focus on integrated pest management
Reading Time: 2 minutes Back in the days when being a farm kid spelled work and a penny was still worth five Mojos at the local store, Grandpa had us all out there one hot, July afternoon hand roguing his seed oats for a penny a plant. If some agronomists are correct, it’s looking like farm kids of the […] Read moreManitoba beef processor moves on federal upgrade
Reading Time: 2 minutes If Calvin Vaags has his way, Manitoba will have a federally inspected ruminant slaughter plant capable of handling 1,000 head per week up and running within a year. After three years of preparation, work has started on a $13-million expansion at Plains Processors, a small processing plant with a capacity of 80 head per week […] Read more
CWB says controversial ad met its objective
The chief strategy officer for CWB says the agency stands by its controversial ad depicting a cowgirl stuck on a fence, saying most people like it. "We’ve got more feedback than I ever expected," said Dayna Spiring about the ad that has been running in farm newspapers in recent weeks. Spiring acknowledged there have been […] Read more
Man. beef processor moves on federal upgrade
If Calvin Vaags has his way, Manitoba will have a federally inspected ruminant slaughter plant capable of handling 1,000 head per week up and running within a year. After three years of preparation, work has started on a $13 million expansion at Plains Processors, a small processing plant with a capacity of 80 head per […] Read more
Ethanol — an agricultural policy that worked perfectly
Hardly new The idea of having some buffer stocks on hand goes back to Joseph and the Pharaoh
Reading Time: 3 minutes Back in the days of $2 corn, someone got the bright idea of turning it into ethanol. Not only would this boost prices by eliminating burdensome carryovers, it would partly diversify the U.S. away from imported energy and create rural jobs at ethanol refineries. Throwing a few subsidies and tax breaks in that direction and […] Read moreMore production is not the only solution to hunger
Reading Time: 3 minutes Every year we hear the stories — the farmer who lost a bin full of canola to spoilage, or the one who lost his sunflowers — and the bin — after the crop overheated and caught fire. Or the farmer who opened his grain bag to find an infested, rotting mess after birds or rodents […] Read more
Making sure the slice is right
Top baker Cigi’s Tony Tweed hangs up his apron after four decades of breads, bagels and croissants
Reading Time: 4 minutes Tony Tweed knew about the unique quality of Canadian bread wheats long before he was recruited to Canada in the mid-1960s to establish its first commercial baking school at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton. “I worked with a lot of Canadian wheat flour in England,” the British-born and -trained baker said. “Everybody […] Read moreLatest census reflects a changing farm face
Reading Time: 2 minutes Whether or not you think consolidation in agriculture is a good thing, it’s continuing at a brisk pace. And nowhere is that more apparent than on the Canadian Prairies. The latest data on farm numbers and scale based on the newly released 2011 Census of Agriculture shows the pace of farm size growth in Alberta, […] Read more
Livestock competitor or livestock customer?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Dermot Hayes, a respected livestock economist from Iowa State University, is admittedly flummoxed over the question of whether it will be grain producers or the livestock sector benefiting from the growing demand for protein in emerging economies. Hayes was in Winnipeg to deliver the annual Kraft Lecture, a memorial to the late University of Manitoba […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
