A new voluntary program spearheaded by Canada’s soybean value-chain group is expected to help Canadian soy growers seeking a sustainability mark for their goods. Soy Canada on March 28 announced the rollout of Sustainable Canadian Soy, a program it said will be available for the 2023 growing season. Exporters and handlers who supply customers that […] Read more
Sustainable soybean program underway
Food-grade, IP soy growers showing interest in verification, Soy Canada says
Environmental stewardship award nominations open
Reading Time: < 1 minute Alberta Beef Producers is now accepting nominations for the 2023 Environmental Stewardship Award. The award recognizes a beef producer “who best exemplifies environmentally sustainable cattle production.” Producers can be nominated by an individual or organization, or apply themselves. A panel of representatives from conservation and agriculture assess the candidate by examining the stewardship goals and […] Read more
Red light, green light — watch out farmers
Health and eco labels a sign of how food and farming is increasingly under the spotlight
Reading Time: 3 minutes Imagine a supermarket where every product is labelled by how healthy it is – green for foods deemed best for you and red for those that aren’t. Then imagine another store, where the ratings are instead based on whether the product was produced according to preferred environmental practices. Both of these (one is called Nutri-Score […] Read more
Feds open up consultations for sustainable ag strategy
Producer groups to have reps on advisory committee
The federal government has enlisted farm groups on the ground floor of consultations toward development of a long-term strategy to “amplify” the adoption and use of sustainable practices in agriculture over the next year. Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Dec. 12 announced the launch of public consultations on strategy development, running from now through March […] Read more
Incentives for sustainable spuds take root
Reading Time: < 1 minute Farmers who grow potatoes for McCain Foods, and who adopt the company’s sustainable ag practices, can get up to $2,000 in reduction on their loan costs with Farm Credit Canada thanks to a joint program by the lender and the french fry maker. The amount depends amount on the size of their loan but McCain […] Read more
U.N.-backed investors set fresh targets in sustainable food shift
Reuters – A U.N.-backed group of global financial institutions including Dutch lender Rabobank on Thursday set out a series of company specific environmental and social targets aimed at helping drive a shift to a more sustainable food system. Set by a group of 11 firms in the Good Food Finance Network, including Nuveen Natural Capital […] Read more
Sustainability is a challenge that continues to evolve
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
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
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
