Everything changed for agriculture after the Second World War. As the world went to war, the sector was largely driven by horsepower. By war’s end, it was poised for rapid mechanization and the Green Revolution. which brought about increased use of fertilizer and herbicides, all products of wartime research efforts. The widespread use of nitrogen
Editor’s Take: Many tools
Editor’s Take: Stuck in the middle
As Canadian citizens, one of the phrases we should fear most in our language is “shared jurisdiction.” That’s the weird governance ‘no man’s land’ stuck between the federal and provincial government, where both are technically responsible for an issue and neither is likely to step up. It’s a poor dynamic, one that sets the stage
Editor’s Take: Time to get serious about rebuilding cattle sector
Several years ago Ralph Eichler, then the newly-minted provincial agriculture minister in the early days of the Pallister government, staked out a goal. He said he wanted to see the province’s beef herd rebuilt to its pre-BSE high water mark. Before that economic disaster hit the sector, Manitoba had been home to about 750,000 beef
Editor’s Take: The Great Grain Robbery II
I suppose theft of grain has always been part of war. Armies have always foraged for food, and victors have frequently carried away these spoils of war. One defence tactic has been to go ‘scorched earth’ and burn crops while retreating. But if grain has always been a tool of war, the criminal syndicate disguised
Editor’s Take: A five-year plan that works
During the Soviet era, a perpetual source of amusement was watching the planned economies announce one “Five-year plan” after another, with lofty goals to boost steel production, grow more wheat and so forth. It was always worth a chuckle because they’d inevitably have just failed to reach the goals of the last five-year plan, yet
Editor’s Take: End of an epoch
The world has lost two great leaders in recent days. First came news from Moscow of the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last general secretary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent bad behaviour aside, it’s difficult some days to remember just how close the geopolitical bomb he defused was
Editor’s Take: Simmer down
It’s time for everyone to step back, take a deep breath, and tone down the rhetoric around the issue of fertilizer emissions. Because right now it’s being over-politicized, under-scrutinized and devoid of any rational examination. Here’s what we know so far. The federal government wants to see farmers reduce emissions from fertilizer by 30 per
Editor’s Take: Everybody wants to work
Employers — including many agricultural employers — seem to have fallen for the trope that ‘nobody wants to work anymore.’ It’s a handy way to back away from any personal responsibility for the industry’s labour woes and one that conveniently avoids looking in the mirror for the source of the problem. We’ll start by looking
Editor’s Take: A medical mystery
Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I was a teenager in rural Saskatchewan, my small hometown of 1,100 people had its own hospital. Built during the booming 1970s, it replaced a 50-year-old structure the community had long outgrown. It had the usual services, including emergency medical treatment when needed. But these days, that building
Editor’s Take: There’s money on the table. Use it
Earlier this summer, serious funds to help farmers lower fertilizer emission levels landed in Manitoba. The Prairie Watersheds Climate Program, administered by the Manitoba Association of Watersheds, is part of the federal government’s On-Farm Climate Action Fund, which promises to spend $200 million over three years. The program will fund a dozen programs aimed at
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