Reading Time: 3 minutes Sushi, sandwiches, broccoli, yogurt, and non-alcoholic beer. Sounds like things you might eat when in fact, it’s what I feed my chickens. Yes, you read that right. My chickens eat sushi and drink non-alcoholic beer on occasion. It’s all thanks to a program called The Loop and a local grocery store chain, Save-On-Foods. The Loop […] Read more
Closing the loop: Food waste gets gobbled up on farms
Chickens eat sushi while washing it down with non-alcoholic beer
Farm groups see something for everyone in federal budget
Response so far from farm and agribusiness organizations to Tuesday’s pre-election budget suggests the federal government has managed to find at least one line item for everyone in the ag sector. Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s budget pledges compensation for supply-managed sectors facing financial hits from international trade pacts, funding for a new federal food policy […] Read more
When it comes to food waste, the system is broken
An astonishing amount of food spoils or is thrown out — it’s time to take action
Reading Time: 3 minutes Between my home and the Victoria airport is a big sign urging “Let’s reduce food waste.” If you are reading this column from your farm table, you may already be an expert at the preservation of food and the use of leftovers. Typically, we eat all we grow on the farm. In the store however, […] Read more
Don’t bug out: Giant fly larvae factory is coming to Alberta
High-protein insect meal is an easy — and sustainable — way to feed livestock
Reading Time: 3 minutes There’s an unassuming factory in Langley, B.C., where thousands of tonnes of premium protein are being produced every year using neither land nor water. Welcome to the world’s largest insect farm — and the future of food. Or, at least, the future of feed. And that future is coming to Alberta next year, when Enterra […] Read more
Comment: Increasingly, food must not only taste good, but ‘feel good’
Flavour and price still count, but more people want food that appeals to their social conscience
Reading Time: 3 minutes Sometimes deciding what to feed the family after a long, arduous day juggling daycare, jobs, and traffic seems overwhelmingly complicated. If a recent press release from the U.S.-based Tyson Innovation Lab is any indication, deciding what we’re going to put into our mouths next is about to get more cluttered with new products, new language, […] Read more
We have the ability to do something about food waste
Reading Time: 4 minutes Lois Schultz of Wetaskiwin won top honours in the 2017 Canadian Young Speakers for Agriculture Competition at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto last month. Here is her prizewinning speech. Seven hundred and fifty million is a huge number. But it seems even more gigantic when you discover that it represents the number of […] Read more
Farmers need to be ‘heroes’ to win over consumers
People respond to powerful stories centred around people they can admire, says Monsanto official
Reading Time: 3 minutes Producing food isn’t enough these days — you’ve got to be a hero, too. That was one of the messages delivered at the recent Public Trust Summit put on by the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity. The conference, in its second year, attracted a diverse crowd of farmers, food processors, retailers, communications experts, and even […] Read more
Taking aim at food waste, companies plan simplified expiration labels
New York | Thomson Reuters Foundation — Some of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, including Kellogg and Wal-Mart, said on Wednesday they will simplify food expiration labels in an effort to eliminate confusion that contributes to food waste. Standardized labeling will use a single expiration date on perishable items and a single quality indicator […] Read more
Innovation with the most unlikely material shows all is possible
Human waste has always been a problem, but it is increasingly seen as a resource and that’s spurring the creation of new technologies
Reading Time: 3 minutes I still spend a lot of time in airports and love to use that time to read interesting stories on people, places, politics, science, and technology. It brings to light all that is possible in our world. A little writeup caught my eye in regards to human waste which is a growing problem. In many […] Read more
In the quest for ever-more production, have we lost our way?
Farmers in the developing world are impoverished while producers here are taking on ever-higher levels of debt
Reading Time: 3 minutes I strongly believe that our focus in the future should be on the nutrient density of plants and biodiversity. Pushing our soils to produce more is terminal because there is burnout of the soil and the plant, along with financial harm to the farmer. Instead, we should look at soil health, seed health with nutrient […] Read more
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