German agriculture under the microscope

Rommerskirchen, Germany – Here are our ‘plant protection’ products,” Willi Kremer Schilling told a delegation of foreign journalists as they entered the fortress-like warehouse at the Buir-Bilesheimer Agricultural Co-operative. “I never say ‘pesticides,” he said. “These are ‘medicines’ for plants.” Willi is one of the 1,150-member co-op’s farmer-directors and he proudly hosts tours of its new[...]

Editorial: Ideology and modern farming

Whenever the subject of organic agriculture surfaces in a discussion about modern farming, the “yabuts” start flowing fast and sometimes, furiously. Ya but organic farmers don’t produce as much as “conventional‚” farmers do, so if everyone went organic, there would be shortages, more pressure on land and higher food prices. And so it goes. Those[...]


Editorial: Long wait, more rhetoric

A long-awaited report by the panel reviewing the Canadian Transportation Act will disappoint those in the grains sector looking for more accountability in the system that moves their crop to market. The report “Pathways: Connecting Canada’s Transportation System to the World” is the result of an accelerated review of the federal legislation. The scheduled review[...]

Canada to regulate CRISPR technology

UPDATED, June 24, 2016: Plants modified using the controversial gene editing technology known as CRISPR/Cas-9 won’t be sailing past regulatory scrutiny to the marketplace in Canada as they currently do in the U.S. While the U.S. regulatory system has determined plants developed using CRISPR are not GMOs and therefore do not fall under the regulatory[...]


What’s hot and what’s not for 2016 crops

Manitoba farmers are facing some tough choices when it comes to squeezing a profit out of the crops they grow in 2016. But the Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development annual crop production guidelines indicate there are still profits to be made in both conventional and organic production systems. These estimates serve as useful reference[...]

Editorial: What’s in a name?

The newly elected Pallister government wasted little time putting its stamp on government in this province. Almost as fast as you can say Ralph Eichler, the provincial department responsible for agriculture got a new name this month: Manitoba Department of Agriculture (MDA). It has a nice simple ring to it. But it also reflects a[...]


Editorial: Brexit, red beans and rice

The plates served up to reporters attending a World Refugee Day event hosted by Canadian Foodgrains Bank June 20 were symbolic of rations for refugees displaced from their homes by war — red beans and rice. Three days later, the industrialized world was trying to swallow a heaping plate of Brexit — also symbolic —[...]

Editorial: Keeping PEDv out

Is it a coincidence that three Manitoba hog operations have experienced outbreaks of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) within weeks after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reinstated protocols for washing trucks returning from the U.S.? We think not. During the height of the PEDv outbreak in the U.S. two years ago, the CFIA suspended a[...]


Editorial: Hold the angry phone calls

At a time when governments are dealing with ballooning deficits, the Canadian Grain Commission is dealing with the opposite — a whopping surplus. As that surplus was accumulated on the basis of service fees, which are ultimately paid by farmers, many will consider that a problem. But there are a few things to consider before[...]

Editorial: Hope is not a strategy

Purdue University’s Michael D. Boehlje offered Manitoba farmers a stern reality check last week about the tightening financial situation in farming. You might even say he was a bit grumpy about it. After all, he’s seen it all before. The 73-year-old Boehlje would have been in his 40s during the 1980s farm crisis, when prices[...]