I spend a lot of time at farm meetings. It’s an occupational hazard. After a while, one can blend into another, even as common themes emerge. Recently one of those common themes has been the need to engage the public, advocate for the industry and ‘educate’ consumers. I agree the math is remorseless. The farm
Editorial: Listen up
Warm weather enables significant canola progress
Much of the late harvest is coming off quite wet, making storage the next big challenge
A run of unseasonably warm weather has the Manitoba canola crop down to the last few thousand acres left to harvest, after a wet fall had disaster looming. “We’ve made a pile of headway in the last few days,” said Anastasia Kubinec, Manitoba Agriculture oilseed specialist, during a Nov. 18 interview. Before the weather turned,
Editorial: Point of pride
Have you ever noticed how a lot of people feel like anyone who disagrees with them is too stupid to know better? Nowhere is this more widespread than the political realm and the trend seems to grow with each passing election campaign. Not only are people wrong if they disagree, they’re uniformed, irrational or biased
Pulse crops fight for consumer attention
Somehow these healthy options are overlooked even in a world suddenly concerned about healthy food
Pulses have an image problem. They’re healthy and hearty fare. At times they can even seem like a wonder food, contributing to lower cholesterol, overcoming dietary fibre shortages and perhaps even slowing the spread of some cancers. Despite this, however, they’re also seen as unglamorous and even at times something to be a bit embarrassed
Editorial: The kids are alright
As a slightly curmudgeonly older father, raised in the free-range parenting heyday of the 1970s, I will admit that it’s not uncommon to find myself rolling my eyes at kids today. With their “everyone gets a medal” and “safe spaces,” I’ve found myself wondering just how prepared these kids will be for the real world.
Editorial: Of interest
Ordinarily there’s not much interesting about interest rates. If things are functioning as they should, most of us rarely think about them. Anyone who does bring them up soon finds it’s a surefire topic to make a dinner companion’s eyes glaze over. But when they do get interesting, it’s rarely a good news story. Just
Homegrown canola breeder sees opportunities and challenges
BrettYoung and DL Seeds say they’ll continue to be a major player in canola breeding in Western Canada
A Manitoba-based canola-breeding consortium says the current wave of lifescience mergers isn’t necessarily bad news for them. Winnipeg’s BrettYoung and Morden’s DL Seeds, a joint venture of two of the largest European oilseed rape-breeding companies, have been working together for a number of years to bring canola hybrids to market. They’ve seen their market share
Editorial: Little chicken
A few years ago a potato war erupted in Manitoba. An independent market gardener had been growing table potatoes for years and selling through farmers’ markets and produce stands. With the local food market really coming into its own, he thought he’d spied a growth opportunity. Eventually he began cutting deals with larger and larger
Editorial: A meaty question
Do we need animals to produce meat? If I’d asked that question even a few years ago, everyone in the room would have assumed I either wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, or that I’d been reading too much science fiction and was waiting for the “Star Trek” replicators to become reality. These days
Editorial: More of the same?
There’s a certain predictability to how the next round of agricultural policy discussions are unfolding. With the Growing Forward 2 suite of programs set to expire in March 2018, many expect that what follows will closely resemble what’s being replaced. That might not serve Canadian agriculture particularly well, however, since the sector is facing a
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
