Reading Time: 4 minutes Jenaya Roseboom is the senior winner of this year’s Alberta Young Speakers for Agriculture competition. The 20-year-old lives on a dairy farm near Rimbey, and in her speech, she addressed the question: Is local food sustainable? There is no simple answer to this question. In agriculture, sustainability is a complex issue that has many parameters […] Read more
Sustainability is a challenge that continues to evolve
Farm census snapshot: Big farms, big dollars, and not getting any younger
Reading Time: 4 minutes Bigger, more valuable, and older. Those are key words emerging from the latest Census of Agriculture. The broad strokes from the 2021 census confirm trends that are well known: Farms are consolidating and getting bigger, land and other assets are worth more, revenues and expenses are both going up, and the high cost of getting […] Read more
You can leverage sustainability to boost profitability, says producer
‘Climate positive’ is the new buzzword but prioritizing stewardship is good business, says Kristjan Hebert
Reading Time: 5 minutes New buzzwords are old news at Hebert Grain Ventures, where ‘climate-positive practices’ have been just another part of doing business for decades. That makes the Saskatchewan grain operation a model for how farmers here can improve sustainability without hurting their profits. “The hashtags that are now used are climate positive and sustainable, but we implemented […] Read more
Alberta EFP links up with global sustainability program
You’ve likely never heard of the SAI Platform but its members are global food and beverage giants
Reading Time: 3 minutes The Alberta Environmental Farm Plan has a new component that enables producers to qualify for a sustainability standard recognized by the food sector’s biggest players. “Producers can use this tool to receive credit for the global standard called Farm Sustainability Assessment,” said Lisa Nadeau of the Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta, which operates […] Read more
Walmart stakes big claim on Canadian sustainable beef
Retailer pledges to take over 680 tonnes in 2022
The Canadian arm of the world’s biggest retailer has put a number to its previous commitment to source certified-sustainable beef for its grocery business. Walmart Canada on Thursday announced it has committed to buy 1.5 million pounds of beef sourced from farms and ranches certified to Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB) standards over the […] Read more
Farmers pan proposed code of practice for grain sector
Group behind voluntary code gets a lot of feedback — much of it negative — on its initial draft
Reading Time: 2 minutes Hundreds of Prairie farmers have weighed in on a new proposed grain code of practice — and most found a lot not to like. Among the criticisms of the draft Responsible Grain code of practice: it’s not needed; it won’t provide any benefits to producers; it could pave the way for regulations that would hinder […] Read more
The crush is coming — will canola growers roll the rotation dice?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Shortening rotations to meet demand from a spate of new crush plants will backfire, say experts Prairie canola growers will need to up production to meet the growing demand from a rash of new crush plants in Saskatchewan. But they won’t get there by sacrificing sustainability, says the Canola Council of Canada. “For us, it’s […] Read more
EU countries approve deal to overhaul farming subsidies
Subsidies to focus on sustainability, 'eco-schemes'
Brussels | Reuters — European Union countries on Monday gave the green light to reforms of the bloc’s huge farming subsidy program, after a three-year battle over rules to make it greener and support smaller farms. Negotiators representing the EU’s 27 countries and European Parliament struck the deal on Friday to reform the Common Agricultural […] Read more
Opinion: A tale of three cheeseburgers and a vision of farming turned upside down
Increasingly, conventional agriculture is viewed as a model that’s due for replacement
Reading Time: 3 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – Farmers are no stranger to new technology and are usually quick to adopt developments that can increase production, or at the very least reduce the risk of losses. Most are well aware that the digital age is likely to bring transformative change to agriculture and food — even if they aren’t quite […] Read more
No ivory tower approach to this unique partnership with farmers
Reading Time: 4 minutes Normally when you need help on the farm, you need the workers to know something about farming and to be physically present. But for some members of the Food Artisans of Camrose County, having some city kids working virtually was no problem at all. Nearly four dozen students from the University of Alberta’s Augustana campus […] Read more
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