Let’s Keep Risks In Perspective

The nuclear crisis in Japan is likely to have a big impact on the future development of the nuclear industry around the world. In a less direct way, it could also lead to more starving people. The link between the two issues is trust. Nuclear power generation is safe, we’ve been told. Unfortunately, no one

Food Projects Receive Funding

Aproject to develop food production and leadership skills among northern Manitoba youth is among the projects supported through a recent $1-million federal research grant for alternative food research. In February 2010 the federal government allocated a $1-million Community University Research Alliance (CURA) grant to help set up and run action-oriented research projects in Manitoba that


EU Wrestles With Issue Of Food From Cloned Animals

European Union governments and lawmakers remained deadlocked on how to regulate the production and sale of food from cloned animals, following all-night talks in Brussels that ended recently. EU sources said the remaining sticking point was a demand by lawmakers in the European Parliament for a full EU ban on the sale of food derived

Marketing Into Growing Economies

It’s one of those rare times at present, when every sector of agriculture is receiving profitable prices from the marketplace. This fits well with the theory of an increasing worldwide population and the growing demand for food. It’s comforting to believe that as farmers we can just continue to do what we’re doing and watch


Japan Disaster Unlikely To Limit Food Imports

The disaster in Japan may not curtail its imports of agricultural commodities and could even increase them over time, a Canadian Wheat Board official said. Once Japan begins to recover from the effects of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown, Japanese consumers may become more accepting of food imports, said Neil Townsend, a CWB market



Eco-Farming Can Double Food Output By Poor

Many farmers in developing nat ions can double food production within a decade by shifting to ecological agriculture from use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, a UN report showed March 8. Insect-trapping plants in Kenya and Bangladesh’s use of ducks to eat weeds in rice paddies are among examples of steps taken to increase food

Research And Development Seen As Key To Solving World Food Crisis

World agriculture needs a major research and development initiative to reverse declining crop production and avoid a global food crisis, says an international food policy expert. Agricultural output has slowed in the last 20 years – an alarming trend, given a growing world population and recent riots in various countries sparked by rising food prices,


Unshackle Food System, U.S. Activist Says

In Joel Salatin’s ideal world, food production would be local, farms would be diversified, livestock would gambol on pastures and regulations would be… well, deregulated. If you think Salatin wants to go back to the old manner of farming before large-scale commercial production took over, you could be right. At least the old-fashioned model was

Organic Farmers Want More Crops Covered By Crop Insurance

Organic farmers want the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation to add nitrogen-fixing and cover crops to the list of crops eligible for crop insurance in Manitoba. That’s the message the Manitoba Organic Alliance (MOA) took to the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation (MASC) board of directors and crop insurance officials during a meeting Feb. 15. “They said