Reading Time: 3 minutes Alberta’s newest meadery is doing things a little differently. Along with a traditional honey wine, Tamarack Jack’s Honey and Meadery also produces a variation that might tempt those who prefer a brewskie to the so-called ‘drink of the gods.’ “We are a small apiary turned into a meadery just recently,” Katie Kingdon, manager of the […] Read more
Alberta’s newest meadery takes a different approach
Enterprising young farmers are the hope of a new Africa
The beleaguered continent has the potential to feed the world — if it can rise above the divisions created by its troubled past
Reading Time: 3 minutes The concept of a united Africa feeding the world is often considered. With a massive land base, Africa has an estimated 632 million hectares of arable land of which only 179 million hectares are currently being utilized. More than 40 per cent of these lands are in Nigeria, DR of Congo, and North and South […] Read more
Steady harvest progression, but yields, crop quality suffers
Alberta crop conditions as of August 22
Reading Time: < 1 minute A week of warm and relatively dry weather throughout the province benefited crop development in the northern regions and allowed harvest to progress rapidly in the South. Crop Conditions have stabilized at 54 per cent rated good or excellent, down less than 2 points on the week. Provincial harvest progress has advanced to 6 per […] Read more
Now is the time to create next year’s battle plan for fusarium
Scouting this year is the first step in limiting the impact of the cereal disease next year
Reading Time: 2 minutes Although it’s likely too late to apply a fungicide for fusarium graminearum, producers can still use the information they gather about the outbreak to plan for subsequent growing seasons. Fusarium graminearum is considered the most important fusarium head blight (FHB) species due to its aggressiveness and production of deoxynivalenol or DON (a.k.a. vomitoxin), said crop […] Read more
‘Public trust’ conference aims to find ways to win back consumers
The popularity of campaigns attacking conventional agriculture shows that the industry needs to do more, says organizer
Reading Time: 2 minutes Public trust is eroding in Canada, and farmers — along with others in the value chain — need to fight back, says the head of a new ag organization aimed at winning back confused consumers. “The whole industry needs to know a whole bunch more about consumers,” said Kim McConnell, an Okotoks-based marketing expert and […] Read more
Big divide in crop and cattle marketing
Grain growers have options that most cattle producers just won’t have this fall
Reading Time: 4 minutes Drought conditions in Alberta will have an upside for crop growers when marketing, but it’s nothing but bad news for cattle producers. “From a bigger-picture perspective, certainly we’re going to have fewer bushels in Western Canada than in the past couple of years, and that is generally going to be supportive to prices,” said FarmLink’s […] Read more
The world has an eating problem — and farming is the solution
Whether it’s obesity or malnutrition, Canadian farmers have an amazing opportunity to be agents of change
Reading Time: 3 minutes “As a farming community we should be the epitome of health.” That was the closing remark of one of the speakers at the Nuffield Triennial Farming Conference in southern England earlier this summer. The speaker had been talking about obesity and food-related health issues, and how farmers could be a solution to this serious problem. […] Read more
Don’t like the grade or dockage assessment?
For $50, the Canadian Grain Commission will give you an independent assessment of the quality of your canola
Reading Time: 2 minutes Alberta producers are reporting large variations among buyers in their dockage assessment on canola, says a provincial crop market analyst. “On dockage alone, producers have reported from one to over three per cent differences in dockage on the same sample of their canola,” said Neil Blue. “These differences were reported both in cases of comparing […] Read more
Eating with our eyes — our perception of food isn’t a simple thing
What consumers perceive as tasty and nutritious is proving to be a lot more complicated than we ever thought
Reading Time: 3 minutes There are many food and consumer trends that keep farmers grappling with providing the right product. Buying food is based on many things: health consciousness, price, flavour and taste, smell, and presentation. From packaging to ‘gastrophysics,’ there are some basics to understand about our ever-challenging task of producing and selling food. I listened to a […] Read more
Shop local trend has changed the game at the Jungle Farm
Leona and Blaine Staples have continually diversified their farm to capitalize on changing consumer shopping trends
Reading Time: 3 minutes Leona and Blaine Staples produce a bit of a different kind of commodity on their operation near Penhold. “We really farm people,” said Leona Staples, who has been running the Jungle Farm with husband Blaine since 1996. “One of the passions in our life is sharing our farm with the rest of the world. We […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
