On one hand, the federal government stated the obvious when it identified the food system as one of the 10 critical infrastructures supporting Canadians during the pandemic crisis. After all, who can survive without food? Nevertheless, the guidance document issued by Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair recently sent an important signal, one
Editorial: COVID-19 is changing the conversation around food
Editorial: Feeding a hungry world? Yes, but…
A senior executive of the largest social research company in the world is cutting a wide swath through the rhetoric pushing farmers to keep ramping up production to feed a hungry world. “It’s all nonsense,” Darrell Bricker told the farmers attending CropConnect 2020 in Winnipeg. The CEO of IPSOS public affairs has written two books
Editor’s Take: Food as a weapon
It’s hard to imagine how the heartbreaking loss of lives in a jetliner crash could translate into a bacon boycott, but welcome to the wild and wacky world of food politics. The reaction when Michael McCain, the CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, took to Twitter to say what a lot of Canadians were feeling after
Editorial: Corporate interest makes sustainability in agriculture tangible
It didn’t take long for a young cattle rancher from Saskatchewan to capture the audience’s attention at the Canada 2020 National Forum on Agri-Food in Ottawa earlier this month. “For me, the word ‘sustainability’ is synonymous with McDonald’s,” said Adrienne Ivey, who is part of a family corporation managing 3,000 beef cattle on a 10,000-acre
Scaling up precision decision-making could shrink Prairie fields
Equipment designed for large uniform fields is poorly suited to variable-rate applications to zones within a field
When Terry Aberhart scans the Prairie horizon for ways precision technology can make his family’s Saskatchewan farm more profitable, he sees something big and cumbersome blocking his view. “One of the biggest challenges we have is the size of our equipment,” the award-winning agronomy coach and founder of the consulting firm Sure Growth Technologies said.
Editorial: What if those weather forecasts are right?
To say Thanksgiving weekend was a wake-up call for those of us living in rural Manitoba would be an understatement. The mid-October snowstorm that swept through the south-central zone between Brandon and Winnipeg is one for the memory books, ranking right up there with the Colorado low that shut down the region in March of
Comment: Combining work, life and farm safety
Keeping kids safe on the farm is a complex balance
It’s a story that’s sending a collective shudder through the farming community — and a powerful message. A four-year-old boy died of head injuries last year after he fell out of the skid-steer bucket he was riding in with his brother while their father was using it to move wood chips on their Ontario farm.
Organic farmers don’t get a pass on clubroot
Clubroot can also infect mustard, radish and other brassicas
Organic farmers are mistaken if they think they will be spared from the clubroot infestation making its way across the Prairies because they don’t grow canola, a crops extension specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture says. Brent Flaten warned growers attending the SaskOrganics annual conference March 29 the disease affects all cruciferous plants, and that includes brassica
Opinion: Liability hampers autonomous ag
For farmer and inventor Brian Tischler, the question isn’t whether autonomous tractors are cool, possible, or useful — it’s how to overcome the liability risk. Tischler told farmers attending CropConnect in Winnipeg recently it’s possible to build your own self-driving vehicle for around $1,000. He’s done it. That’s made the Manville, Alberta farmer a popular
Editorial: The changing faces of agriculture
Roaming the hallways and meeting rooms of this week’s CropConnect conference in Winnipeg offered an interesting snapshot of the state of farming in this province. Kudos to the organizers: the two-day conference put on by a consortium of nine commodity groups has proven itself a success on numerous fronts. With all the commodity groups out