Mapping the changes behind Manitoba’s decades-long hog boom.

For its size, Manitoba’s pork sector is an overachiever. Here’s how it happened

How NAFTA, the end of the Crow Rate and the end of single-desk marketing shaped the sector, and what got lost along the way

Ian Smith’s hog farm hasn’t changed much since his family began raising pigs in the late 1960s. It has no pit system. Smith scrapes the pens and spreads straw twice a day. His 10 to 15 sows spend time outside. On his 160 acres near Argyle in Manitoba’s Interlake, he raises his own barley and

Bt-resistant European corn borer on a corn plant in Nova Scotia in 2018.

Bt-resistant corn borer concern grows

Critical tools for controlling corn borer could be lost

Glacier FarmMedia – Bt-resistant populations of European corn borer pose a significant risk to Canadian crop producers. With multiple resistance uncovered, it’s possible Bt-based control technologies will cease to work for the problem pest. Older and more environmentally costly methods of pest control – including repeated in-season insecticide applications – might make a comeback as a result.


Scenes from the Ukrainian corn harvest. This year farmers are struggling to justify the cost of harvesting due to the war and lack of markets.

From Ukraine: The second summer of war

FIRST PERSON | As harvest begins, farmers wonder if they should bother

A kamikaze drone flew over our house last night. It fell near our fence and exploded. I looked out the window and saw a red flame. Then I opened my eyes and realized it was a nightmare. In the morning, I called my mother. She said she heard a drone over our town at 3 a.m. These soulless killing

Prairie Clean Energy says it’s turning nuisance flax straw into pellets for horse bedding at a Gilbert Plains facility.

Saskatchewan company to buy flax straw in Gilbert Plains area

Prairie Clean Energy to pelletize flax straw for animal bedding

A Saskatchewan biomass company says it is buying flax straw in the Gilbert Plains area this fall for use in pellets. Prairie Clean Energy, a Regina-based company, has leased time in a Gilbert Plains plant for its initial commercial run of flax pellets, it said in an announcement posted to the Canadian Biomass website. The


A view of the grain terminal at the Black Sea port of Constanta, Romania, May 11, 2022.

Romanian PM sees Ukraine grain flowing through country

Black Sea port of Constanta has emerged as best alternative route

Roughly 60 per cent of Ukraine’s grain exports could transit through neighbouring Romania after Russia quit a U.N.-brokered safe passage deal through the Black Sea, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said August 18. Ukraine is one of the world’s top grain exporters, and Russia has been attacking its agricultural and port infrastructure after refusing to extend the year-old safe passage corridor.

As combines roll across the province, the expected highly variable yield picture is emerging.

Variable moisture, variable yields as harvest in Manitoba begins

Early reports say spring wheat crops are rated mostly fair to good; some producers report below-average or average yields

Variability was the name of the game as spring wheat harvest began in the third week of August. “This is the most variable I can remember,” said Clayton Harder. He has fields around the north side of Winnipeg and said he has soybeans that are ankle high and others that are waist high. One field


Provincial leaders at the Association of Manitoba Municipalities pre-election debate in April.

KAP, AMM set election priorities for rural Manitoba

Rural Manitoba could be key battleground in the upcoming election

With the provincial election less than two months away, rural Manitoba could become an important battleground. The rural/urban split falls roughly along party lines, so the provincial Tories must shore up support in their traditional strongholds of rural Manitoba if they want to remain in office. Their counterparts in the NDP will need to make

Little Niska and the big Canada geese she retrieved on a September hunt.

The hunter’s best friend

A hunting dog adds immeasurably to a hunt, as long as both hunter and canine know their tasks

I am on my third hunting dog and she is in the autumn of her hunting days. After three decades with a dog joining me on a grouse walk or in a duck blind, a bird hunt without my four-footed pal just doesn’t seem right. It’s not just because a well-trained dog adds tremendously to


“We appreciate the hard work the agriculture minister’s office and department staff did on this file to get it done in such a short time frame, but they will have to forgive us if we watch warily for the implementation.” – Brent Benson, Manitoba Crown Land Leaseholders Association.

Crown land leaseholders satisfied, for now

The province recently approved changes to the Crown lands system

The Manitoba Crown Land Leaseholders Association is cautiously optimistic about recent changes to Manitoba’s Agricultural Crown Lands regulations. “We appreciate the hard work the agriculture minister’s office and department staff did on this file to get it done in such a short time frame,” said association president Brent Benson. “But they will have to forgive us

ACC’s incoming mechatronics course will target labour needs of an increasingly technical agribusiness sector, the college says.

New ACC course to target advanced technical know-how

Two courses, mechatronics and horticulture (new to the college’s Parkland campus), have been slated for launch next year

A course set to open in Brandon’s Assiniboine Community College campus next fall will prepare workers to run, troubleshoot and fix equipment in increasingly automated agri-food processing facilities. “It’s the future. Everything’s going digital,” said Chris Budiwski, chair of the college’s agriculture and environment school. On Aug. 2, ACC announced that, as of September 2024, it will


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