KAP general manager James Battershill says a good carbon pricing plan can make farmers part of the solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and generate farmers some new revenues at the same time.

KAP takes proactive stance on carbon pricing

The group says a good plan could help farmers be part of the 
solution and generate new revenue while doing it

Pricing carbon to encourage fewer greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change will affect all Canadians, including farmers. How depends on the program each province implements. It could raise farmers’ nitrogen fertilizer and fuel costs, but sequestering carbon with zero-till or rotational grazing could earn credits offsetting some of those costs. And while some farm

KAP asks House of Commons ag committee to reconsider bypassing Manitoba

The committee is travelling to get input on Growing Forward 3, 
but Manitoba, which was on the list of stops, was dropped

The Keystone Agricultural Producers thinks the Commons agriculture committee shouldn’t bypass Manitoba. KAP is unhappy the committee won’t be stopping here when it leaves Ottawa this fall to study Growing Forward 3. “We wrote a letter to the chair Pat Finnigan requesting that they reconsider coming to Manitoba and we will see where that goes,”


Manitoba government seeking solutions to tax shift to high-value farmland

Manitoba government seeking solutions to tax shift to high-value farmland

Tax increases may affect industry stability

The Manitoba government and Association of Manitoba Municipalities are aware of a shocking rise in property taxes facing some Manitoba farmers. Both are exploring what can be done, but officials didn’t provide any potential solutions when interviewed last week. “Yeah, it is causing concern without a doubt,” Eileen Clarke, minister of indigenous and municipal relations,

As Manitoba farmers take off the crop, some are getting an unpleasant surprise in the mail in the form of a much larger-than-expected land tax bill.

Manitoba farmers see shocking jump in land taxes

Some say it’s unfair that the big jump in land values is shifting 
the municipal tax burden to farmers

Some Manitoba farmers are getting an unpleasant surprise when they open their 2016 farmland property tax bills. “I swallowed hard and wondered what was going on,” said Lowe Farm farmer Bill Toews in an interview. “I was shocked at the amount of increase, and not just in the education tax, but in municipal tax as

Dan Mazier, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers.

KAP wants action to get grain moving through Churchill this year

Dan Mazier says contracts have been made and not meeting them sends the wrong message 
about Canada as a grain supplier

Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) president Dan Mazier is dismayed by delays in reopening the Port of Churchill to export grain this year. “I will put this right at the feet of the federal government — either the transport minister or the agriculture minister,” Mazier said in an interview Aug. 6. “There are (grain) contracts out


As soybean acres continue to expand across Western Canada, the concept of creating a local processing plant lingers.

Keeping soybeans at home to be fed

KAP members support a crushing plant, and a study for the MPGA says it’s worthwhile

Many of Manitoba’s hog barns are surrounded by soybean fields, but the soymeal inside them may have come from hundreds of miles away in the U.S. That prompted Keystone Agricultural Producers members at their recent summer advisory meeting here to support the Brandon Chamber of Commerce’s efforts to encourage industry to construct a soybean-processing plant

KAP president Dan Mazier addresses members during the organization’s summer advisory meeting on July 13 in Brandon.

KAP lobbies for increased funding for GF3

Keystone Agricultural Producers passed 11 new resolutions at the recently held summer advisory meeting held in Brandon on July 13

Members at Keystone Agricultural Producers summer advisory meet­ing here last week heard an update on lobbying efforts for the new Growing Forward 3 (GF3) program. “We have delivered our messages to senior policy staff from Agriculture and Agri-Food Can­ada and Manitoba Agriculture in June and yesterday we attended an official stakeholders’ meeting,” KAP president Dan

Lara Ellis (l to r), director of strategic initiatives with ALUS Canada, James Battershill, KAP general manager, Dan Mazier, KAP president.

The ALUS program may come back to life in Manitoba

The new government looks to follow through on its 
promise to implement the program province-wide

The provincial government says it supports a revived ecological goods and services program but it’s not certain who will foot the bill. “The government has made this a priority and the minister of agriculture and the minister of sustainable development have been mandated with creating a program based on the Alternative Land Use Services (ALUS)


CP railway engine and grain cars

CP CEO says company ready for bumper crop, shippers skeptical

Company says new investments will increase ability to move a big crop

The CPR says it’s ready to move a bumper crop, but agriculture industry observers remain somewhat skeptical. CP CEO Hunter Harrison said, in a recent letter to Transport Minister Marc Garneau, the company is aware a big crop is on the horizon and is prepared for it. “I think it is good news that CP

KAP president Dan Mazier.

KAP has first meeting with Ag Minister Ralph Eichler

Manitoba’s general farm organization covered a number of issues, including 
education tax, in a meeting with the new Manitoba agriculture minister

School taxes, red tape, ALUS and Growing Forward 3 were topics of discussion during the first meeting between the province’s general farm organization and the newly minted provincial agriculture minister. The Keystone Agricultural Producers and Ralph Eichler sat down last week for the first time since the change in government this spring. “School taxes (on