JoAnne Buth looks back at a carer of change as she enters retirement.

JoAnne Buth: a life in agriculture

Cigi’s newly retired CEO didn’t have a plan, but walked through new doors as they opened

JoAnne Buth is an expert in removing mosquito ovaries. Her favourite insect is the weevil. She’s one of the newest members of the Canadian Agriculture Hall of Fame. And if you keep reading you’ll learn lots more about the recently retired CEO of Cigi — the Canadian International Grains Institute — and her auspicious agricultural


Canola shipments to China have been under scrutiny for years Buth said.

Buth unsurprised by China’s Canadian canola ban

As canola council president she helped keep the border open in 2009 but suspected China would eventually try to ‘control things’

China’s ban on Canadian canola seed is something JoAnne Buth, a former president of the Canola Council of Canada, has been expecting since 2009. “In September 2009 we managed to negotiate with the Chinese to keep the border open on this whole issue,” Buth said in an interview May 22 as she prepared to retire

Christian Wytinck of Cypress River says GPS has a myriad of uses on the family’s farms, mostly revolving around greater efficiency.

Section control helps farmer find more acres

GPS locates overlooked acres

Christian Wytinck always seemed to run out of seed be- fore he finished seeding one of the fields on the family’s farm operation near Cypress River, Man. “We just bought this one field close by and when we went to farm it, Dad thought it would seed 295 acres, but when I went to actually


canada flag

Editor’s Take: Canada at a crossroads

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Canada remains either a leader or laggard in the realm of support for its agriculture sector, depending on how one approaches the problem. A free market idealist who favours letting the invisible hand sort it all out might think less support to producers is a

Canada, along with other industrialized countries, is the victim in the issue of fraudulent documents in China. Food fraud is rampant throughout that country.

Comment: China clearly has Canada’s number on food safety

They’re using every tool they can to undermine Canada’s quality food brand, and we're losing the battle

Canada is losing the game of food safety optics against China. While Canada has demonstrated many times that its food safety record is outstanding, in fact, one of the best in the world, none of it matters now. Since Meng Wanzhou, the vice-president of Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018, China has been


Kent Collins, recent graduate in Communications Engineering Technology at Assiniboine Community College, examines a beehive at 4K Honey.

High-tech hives

Beekeepers might get constant hive conditions at their fingertips once a student project out of Assiniboine Community College is fully developed

Kent Collins has a different idea of the ideal beehive — it involves a lot more wiring. Collins, along with his partner, Adam Lennox, are the minds behind the Bee Aware hive-monitoring system, a remote sensing system that promises real-time hive feedback to beekeepers. The project is the pinnacle, or “capstone project” of their study

Editor’s Take: Fair’s fair

An old friend lives in Winnipeg along a major thoroughfare that’s slated for expansion at some yet-to-be-determined future date. He and his wife have lived there for nearly 20 years, and the word of the planned roadwork came down shortly after they bought the house. They’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, that once the