A common theme that emerges when talking to food-industry observers about the ongoing pandemic is that while Canada’s agriculture and food systems are highly efficient and productive, they lack resilience. Six months into a pandemic that shows no signs of being over any time soon, cracks that were virtually invisible before are now becoming impossible
Editorial: Our food security is vulnerable
Editorial: Too many kids still dying on farms
Over the last two decades there has been a noticeable increase in education and training designed to make farms safer places for children to grow up. Kids, even toddlers, often like to tag along with their farming parent. As they grow older and more capable they have traditionally been an important source of labour on
Editorial: Surplus food purchases symbolic of broader discussion
On the surface, the $50-million Surplus Food Rescue Program recently launched by the federal government is simply a sensible response to highly unusual circumstances. The government is buying up surplus fruits, vegetables, meat, fish and seafood from farmers and fishers who would normally supply the foodservice sector and distributing it to Canadians suffering from food
Editorial: Trade shenanigans divide and conquer
While many Canadians were enjoying backyard barbecues this summer after months of being isolated from family and friends, the country quietly embarked on a new era of trade with two of its largest trading partners. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), referred to as the CUSMA in Canadian documents, came into force to replace the North American
Comment: Bayer settlement aimed at getting back to business
Lawsuit was putting the safety of glyphosate in the legal realm, not the scientific
Imagine buying a house that you’ve always had your eye on only to learn that some seemingly fixable flaws were actually masking a much more deeply rooted problem. That’s the situation Bayer CropScience found itself in shortly after sealing its US$63-billion takeover bid for rival life science company Monsanto in 2018. It became clear early
Editorial: A global barn raising
Whenever you hear people romanticizing the good old days of pioneering life on the Prairies, the nostalgia is almost always tied to the community spirit. By most measures, the early settlers lived a miserable existence. But they were all in it together and all working towards the same end, firstly to survive and then to
Editorial: Students and the farm labour crisis
Amidst all the disruption, the suffering and the fear, the one good thing you could say about our ongoing experience with COVID-19 is that it has peeled back the layers of our society to expose the raw — and sometimes unpleasant — truths about what we truly value. When childcare workers can earn more income
Editorial: Meat packing concentration leads to problems
When Canadians flocked to their grocery stores to stock up for the pandemic lockdown, most weren’t filling their carts with plant-based proteins. It was the meat counters that cleared out along with the toilet paper shelves, baking ingredients, and with other basics considered necessities. While more Canadians have been experimenting with these plant-based proteins, most
New Zealand family farm
Faces of Ag: The only thing steeper than the hills on this South Island farm is the cost of buying them
Tim Anderson’s description of his farm as a “hill-country farm with a wee bit of flat,” doesn’t do justice to the breathtaking views and roller-coaster thrills of driving through his paddocks. Anderson and his wife Sue raise sheep, cattle, honey and trees on their 922-ha spread located about two hours north of Christchurch on New
Editorial: Farmers should tread carefully when seeking more aid
There is one stabilizing force for agriculture amidst all the uncertainties as the effects of pandemic management ripple through the food chain like an electrical shock to everything it touches. The recently released Farm Credit Canada report on land values, based on 2019 transactions, shows the value of farmland in Canada continues to rise, albeit