Other & Farming Articles - Manitoba Co-operator

A quick look back at the weather in 2021

The weather models aren’t very consistent about temperatures for early 2022

By Daniel Bezte January 26, 2022

In my last column, we finished up our look at the top Canadian weather stories of 2021. Since then, the top weather stories from around the world have come out and not surprisingly, the top story was the late-June/early-July heat wave that hit Western Canada and the northwestern United States. Now I don’t want to

Dairy cattle, Livestock, Other

Study finds no data to show change in butter consistency

Not enough data to link to palm supplement use, either

By Dave Bedard, GFM Network News January 22, 2022

Updated, Jan. 24 — A panel tasked with reviewing complaints of changes in Canadian butter’s consistency has found there’s not enough data out there to support those complaints — nor to support the allegation that palm byproducts in cows’ rations were the cause. The Expert Working Group on Feed Supplementation, set up by Dairy Farmers

Other

Farm cybersecurity campaign seeks farmer input

CSKA online survey open until Feb. 18

By GFM Network News, Gfm Staff January 21, 2022

Canadian farmers are being asked for their input on a federally-backed project to assess and improve cybersecurity in Canada’s ag sector. The Community Safety Knowledge Alliance, the lead organization on the Cyber Security Capacity in Canadian Agriculture project, has put up a voluntary online survey for farm operators, running until Feb. 18, “to look at

Letters, Op/Ed, Other

Letters: Eichler should worry

By Brian Sterling January 20, 2022

Editor’s note: This letter was written before the announcement that the Manitoba government had shuffled its cabinet and had appointed Derek Johnson as Manitoba agriculture minister. Recently one of the Winnipeg radio stations had two climatologists as guests. They were discussing last summer’s drought and both mentioned Manitoba was the epicentre of the disaster. If a

John Towle poses with his CWRA Distinguished Service Award Dec. 7 in Brandon.

Faces of ag, Farmit Manitoba, Other

Watershed association honours water architect with Distinguished Service Award

Faces of Ag: Water management fixture John Towle has joined the list of CWRA Distinguished Service Award recipients

By Alexis Stockford January 18, 2022

It took some time for John Towle to get to the door after leaving the stage of the Manitoba Association of Watersheds awards banquet in early December. It seemed like every other person wanted to shake his hand. In his grip, Towle carried an inscribed paddle, the mark of his Distinguished Service Award, just presented

When it comes to U.S. federal farm programs, silence is golden.

Comment, Op/Ed, Other

Comment: Keep moving, nothing to see here

When the U.S. government slapped together a tariff-mitigation program, mistakes were made

By Alan Guebert January 17, 2022

No one was shocked recently when the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had overpaid farmers billions of dollars during the slapdash tariff-mitigation scheme ordered by the Trump White House in 2018 and 2019. A couple of billion bucks in government waste is, evidently, chump change when — as

Keefer Terminal (foreground) at the Port of Thunder Bay. (PortOfThunderBay.ca)

Crops, Other

Thunder Bay shipping season wraps up

By GFM Network News, Marketsfarm January 15, 2022

MarketsFarm — The last vessel of the shipping season will depart the Port of Thunder Bay on Friday. Grain handling volumes were down on the year, but increases in other categories helped limit the overall reduction in movement through the northern Lake Superior port. The 2021 navigation season will come to a close with the

Sea surface temperature anomalies over the equatorial Pacific Ocean for the week centred on Jan. 5, 2022. (CPC.ncep.noaa.gov)

Other, Weather

La Niña likely to continue into spring, U.S. forecaster says

By GFM Network News, Reuters January 13, 2022

Reuters — La Nina conditions are likely to continue during the Northern Hemisphere spring, a U.S. government weather forecaster said on Thursday. The La Niña weather pattern, characterized by unusually cold temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, has a 67 per cent chance of persisting from March through May this year, the National Weather Service’s

Editorial, Op/Ed, Other

Editor’s Take: The sick man of the Prairies

By Gord Gilmour January 13, 2022

In the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire was in trouble. It had controlled much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa from the 14th century onward, but had now entered a period of decline and contraction. Emperor Nicholas I of the Russian Empire coined the phrase ‘the sick man of Europe’ to describe the

Other, Weather, Weather Vane

Weather: Warm start, then back to cold?

FORECAST | Issued Jan. 7, covering the period from Jan. 12-19, 2022

By Daniel Bezte January 13, 2022

See what happens when you take a couple of weeks off from forecasting? We go from nice, mild, above-average temperatures to bone-chilling, well-below-average cold. While the change in weather pattern that took place over the holidays did result in cold weather, it also brought some much-needed precipitation. The questions for this forecast period are: Will

Daily Network News

Wheat breeding system no longer works, Canadian Wheat Research Coalition report says

Feed grain weekly: Barley steady in late February

Reduced Argentine soybean harvest, bigger crush says USDA attaché