Questions The industry will need to justify why it takes up 60 per cent of the province’s water allocation
Reading Time: 3 minutes The new political buzzword with the provincial government is “conversation.” It’s a word hatched by Premier Redford who seems to mention it at every opportunity. In the past we had roundtable discussions, town-hall meetings, public consultations, commissions of inquiry, fact-finding tours — we even had kitchen table talks — but now it’s “conversations” with our […] Read moreIrrigation is the elephant in the room
Meat packing is tough business
Reading Time: 2 minutes Recently an entrepreneur in Manitoba announced that he and a group of investors will be expanding an existing small abattoir into a 1,000-head-per-week slaughter plant. The investment will be to the tune of $13 million. The announcement came with the usual statements about the need for a local processor that could serve both Manitoba cattle […] Read more
More than met the eye to Whelan
Reading Time: 3 minutes Eugene Whelan will be remembered mostly for his green Stetson, inability to speak either of Canada’s official languages and his cheerleading for the farm community. Too bad because there was a lot more to the former Liberal agriculture minister, who died just weeks after his Conservative counterpart John Wise. He was a lot politically shrewder […] Read more
Horsemeat — revolting to some, delicacy to others
Horsemeat hysteria Food choices are often a matter of religion and tradition, not one of health and nutrition
Reading Time: 3 minutes Reuters / Disgust, the gag reflex and flights to the vomitorium greeted the news that horse flesh had contaminated burgers and frozen beef meals all over Europe. Some of the “beef” products contained 100 per cent horsemeat, and early forensic tests hinted that the contamination might go back as far as August 2012. Both the […] Read moreCut the booze before the beef: Health study
Health message Canada Beef Inc. says it should be to eat more fruit and vegetables, not less beef
Reading Time: 2 minutes At the end of December 2012, an important health study was released and created a fair bit of buzz in nutrition circles. The study, “The Global Burden of Disease Study (2010),” published in the medical journal Lancet, was an examination of a variety of factors with the goal of estimating each one’s relative contribution to […] Read moreTrade talks seem to be going according to the EU script
Reading Time: 4 minutes Recent news that the European Union (EU) and Canada free trade negotiations are at the final hour, but have stalled on agriculture-related issues should come as no surprise. Both sides maintained rigid ag trade positions well before the discussions started four years ago. Negotiations on the topic seemed to be carefully dodged as other non-agricultural […] Read more
A curious case of double standard
Reading Time: 2 minutes There seems to be a double standard between lettuce and beef when it comes to reporting foodborne pathogens. An incident last summer seems outrageous considering the cavalier approach of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the lack of any reporting by the mainstream media. The fact that this may the first time you read about […] Read more
Post-monopoly reflections on the new age of grain marketing
OK so far Just how accurate were those horror stories about grain marketing post-CWB monopoly?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Much has been written about how farmers will market their grains in the post-single-desk world. Horror stories abound about how the grain companies won’t take the CWB contracts until they have filled their own, pools won’t reflect fair market prices, and farmers won’t have the expertise to market in the new climate. Now that we […] Read moreLuing cattle on the rise
Reading Time: < 1 minute I would like to respond to comments made about Luing cattle in the article “All cattle are not all black yet” in the Feb. 4 edition. I’m not sure where Mr. Fee gained his impression that our breed had disappeared prior to him noticing “some registrations in 2010-11.” Our herd book contains registrations of Luing […] Read more
February 14 was ‘Food Freedom Day’ in Canada
Conserve CFA suggested serving ‘waste-not forget-me-nots’ for your Valentine’s Day celebration
Reading Time: 2 minutes Coined Food Freedom Day by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA), February 14 was the calendar date when the average Canadian will have earned enough income to pay his or her grocery bill for the entire year. “Food Freedom Day is a chance to acknowledge the abundant, safe and secure food supply we enjoy in […] Read moreCyber-Savvy Farmer
