This holiday season Melodie Chan wants producers to avoid what she calls the “spiral of silence,” which can happen around the dinner table, over beers or even in the gentle lull between turkey and pie if farmers don’t speak up when they hear misinformation about agriculture. “What are we afraid of?” asked Chan, speaking at
Talk to family, friends about farming
Pilot program seeking dairy farmers
Barriers to employment can be as straightforward as lacking access to transportation or childcare
A new partnership hopes to make it easier for Manitoba milk producers to hire locally. Keystone Agricultural Producers is working with Workplace Education Manitoba and Industry Training and Employment Services to create a pilot program that would see interested participants trained to work on dairy farms in southeastern parts of the province. Read more: New dairy
Organization in Canada, China, sign memorandum
Canola Council of Canada touts benefits of canola oil and meal during trade mission to China
The Canola Council of Canada is celebrating a new memorandum of understanding after wrapping up a trade mission to China. Speaking from Beijing, canola council president Jim Everson emphasized the importance of the Chinese market for Canadian canola producers and processors. “We are just at the end of what we think is a very successful
Expansion possible as cannabis market grows
Small companies could see host of new opportunities in the wake of cannabis legalization
A Manitoba entrepreneur has high hopes that pending changes to cannabis laws will help expand her fertilizer business. Jen Unwin of Nature’s Perfect Plant Food said the ability for Canadians to grow their own marijuana could be a “huge boon” to small input providers, as consumers learn more about indoor plant production. “In eight short
New risk-management research
Federal government invests nearly $1 million in the hope of developing better risk management programs for forage producers
Farmers could soon be turning to eyes in the sky to better manage the risk associated with hay and forage production. The federal government recently announced it would invest $988,000 in collaborative research aimed at using satellite-based technology to estimate forage growth at the farm level. That information would then be developed into a forage
Door opens to hog expansion
Anaerobic digesters out, new barns in
New hog barns will be built Manitoba. After an all-night session at the Manitoba Legislature, Bill 24 has passed its final reading and received royal assent. Better known as the Red Tape Reduction and Government Efficiency Act, Bill 24 covers legislation ranging from consumer protection and labour relations, to residential tenancies and transportation of dangerous
New dairy plant will churn out butter, other products
As demand for butter fat continues to grow, Western Milk Pool to eliminate SNF/BF ratio
Manitoba dairy producers will no longer have to ship milk across provincial borders, thanks to an increased processing capacity at home. The $100-million MDI dairy-processing plant is up and running in Winnipeg’s South End, increasing Manitoba’s dairy-processing capacity by about 40 per cent. The 80,000-square-foot retrofitted egg-processing facility will now process 180 million litres of
Bill 24 to allow new hog barns
A diverse group of individuals and organizations spend two nights making the case for and against the hog industry
Untreated manure is good for the soil, anaerobic digesters are ineffective, hogs will poison Lake Winnipeg, farm expansion has ignored Treaty Land Entitlements and immigration relies on the pork industry. Those are just a sampling of the varied opinions heard by an all-party committee of the provincial legislature last week during two days of public
Dairy farmers watch NAFTA closely
Negotiations have featured ‘exotic demands’ from the U.S. and dairy doesn’t feel singled out
Canadian dairy producers are watching NAFTA renegotiations like a hawk, but predicting what demands U.S. negotiators will make of Canada and Mexico remains somewhere between ‘difficult’ and ‘impossible.’ “Through Dairy Farmers of Canada, we follow those trade talks very closely and we are on the ground at every round,” David Wiens, chair of Dairy Farmers
Less flying farmers, more need for aerial applicators
As Flying Farmers clubs see falling numbers even as agriculture demands more pilots, women are taking up the challenge
Don Dewar jokingly calls it the $100 hamburger. Across Manitoba and rural Canada, flying clubs host fly-in breakfasts, lunches and other events to bring people to their airports and communities. “It’s a social thing, they get together with other pilots and it gives them an excuse to use their airplane, because everyone loves to fly,
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
