Optimism in agriculture unprecedented, says KAP president

It’s a good time to be a farmer and the future for agriculture looks even brighter, says Keystone Agricultural Producers’ president Doug Chorney. “I think the level of optimism in agriculture today is really unprecedented,” he said in his state-of-the-industry address kicking off the general farm organization’s 29th annual meeting in Winnipeg Jan. 23. “I

Dietary shifts driving up phosphorus use

Rising meat consumption, and calorie intakes are 
complicating efforts to conserve essential resource

Dietary changes since the early 1960s have fuelled a sharp increase in the amount of mined phosphorus used to produce the food consumed by the average person over the course of a year, according to a new study led by researchers at McGill University. Between 1961 and 2007, rising meat consumption and total calorie intake


U.K. farm minister calls on European authorities to speed up approval of GM crops

Owen Paterson says genetic modification isn’t a “frightening, new, spooky 
technology” and brings many benefits, including reduced pesticide and fuel use

Reuters / Britain’s farming and environment minister, Owen Paterson is calling for an acceleration in the European Union’s approval process for genetically modified crops, which he said offered benefits including less pesticide use. “I think we need to work with like-minded partners to move the (GM) legislation along at a European level because it is

Let the Ag Year begin

Manitoba Ag Days 2013 is literally where the “Ag Year begins” for many of the 12,000-plus visitors a day who come to check out the latest equipment and products, learn something new and meet with friends and acquaintances they may not have seen for a while. “One of the really great things about Ag Days


4-H Reports

The Co-operator will publish 4-H reports once a month. Reports can be submitted by the third week of the month by email to [email protected], by regular mail to 4-H Reports, c/o Manitoba Co-operator, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1, or by fax to 204-954-1422. Rapid City Beef The club met at the Rapid City

Rural Germany faces steep decline

As farms get larger and land more expensive, young people from small towns are packing up and moving to the big cities in search of career opportunities. With a shrinking tax base, funding for the provision of services dries up, schools are shuttered, shops close, and doctors flee for greener pastures. Sound familiar? It should.


Apply what we already know works

The drought-prone South Gansu province of China suffers from limited water and severe soil erosion. It is not a hospitable environment for food production. Yet, despite these harsh conditions, farmers are producing and selling more food. They are feeding themselves and their families. And their incomes are steadily rising. In degraded areas of Burkina Faso,

Insects touted as solution to protein needs

Reuters — Scientists in the Netherlands say they’ve found that insect protein may be a more sustainable alternative to milk, chicken, pork and beef. Beetle larvae (called mealworms) farms produce more edible protein than traditional farms for chicken, pork, beef or milk, for the same amount of land used, Dennis Oonincx and colleagues from the


After beef’s biggest recall: What’s next?

The reopening of the XL beef plant at Brooks is not the end of troubles for the Canadian beef industry

The past two months have seen considerable turmoil in Alberta’s beef sector because of the XL beef recall. Although there has been some relief with the JBS takeover there could still be a long way to go. Canada’s beef sector has been influenced by a number of factors:  Grass. Western Canada’s cow-calf sector grew because