The Climate Change Conundrum

ith the June 20 crop insurance past, farmers and their crop insurance agents are pulling on their galoshes to assess the W damages from yet another spring with too much water. Cattle producers are worrying about winter feed supplies as they watch flood waters inundate their hayfields. We are told this year is one for

More Support Needed For Small-Scale Farming

U.K. charity Oxfam, warning that food demand will have jumped by 70 per cent by 2050, said soaring food prices and weather and financial shocks had aggravated the hunger crisis and that the global food economy was broken. “The food system is pretty well bust in the world,” Oxfam chief executive Barbara Stocking told reporters,


Centre For Food In Canada Releases First Report

The value of food to the Canadian economy reaches far beyond the value of primary production, processing and distribution, a new report by the Conference Board of Canada says. But as one of Canada’s most highly regulated sectors, the food industry’s opportunity for continued growth will depend on its ability to address two competing pressures:

Disease Threats To Canadian Livestock Persist

Despite a recent triumph in the battle against serious animal diseases, Canada must remain vigilant against new and old threats to its livestock industries, says the chief food safety officer. Climate change and global trade patterns are helping spread new viruses from Africa to Europe and other countries, Brian Evans, vice-president of the Canadian Food


In Brief… – for Jun. 2, 2011

No moose:Moose-hunting seasons have been cancelled in the Porcupine Mountains (Game Hunting Areas 13 and 13A) for 2011, Conservation Minister Bill Blaikie has announced. Cancellation of all moose-hunting seasons for 2011 is in addition to cancellations previously announced for (GHAs 14 and 14A) in the region. Other management decisions such as reducing access to the

EU Lawmakers Reject Farm Policy Budget Cut

The European Union’s farm budget should be kept at least at its current level when the policy is reformed from 2014, an influential committee of EU lawmakers said May 25. The common agricultural policy (CAP) budget is currently worth about 55 billion euros ($77.35 billion) a year, or around 40 per cent of the bloc’s


Food Security Key To Global Peace FAO Candidate

The world has to act against hunger, which affects 13 per cent of the population, if it wants to strengthen global security, a candidate to run the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said April 27. Franz Fischler, an Austrian who is former EU agriculture commissioner, said during an interview the whipsaw effect of volatile food

Global Grain Reserve Idea Gaining Momentum – for May. 5, 2011

During the decade from 1996 to 2006, the world became accustomed to stable crop production levels. Production problems in one part of the world were balanced out by increased production elsewhere. In such a world it was easy to argue that reserves were unnecessary, because there would always be someone with a supply they were


Canada Needs Food Policy

More than 3,500 Canadians have tabled a document calling for a national food policy that emphasizes domestic food systems, more farmers, and initiatives such as school lunch programs. CalledResetting the Table: A People’s Food Policy for Canada, the document is the first national food policy proposal to emerge from this country’s growing food movement. The

Phytosanitary Grain Rules Need Work

The international grain trade needs better phytosanitary rules and tolerances for low-level presence of genetically modified (GM) crops, says Dennis Stephens, a consultant contracted to co-ordinate the Canada Grains Council. “Zero thresholds are no longer obtainable,” Stephens told the council’s 42nd annual meeting in Winnipeg earlier this month. “We’ve reached a stage where we have