Party Agriculture Platforms For May 2 Election

CONSERVATIVE PARTY: A Conservative government would invest $100 million over five years into the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, extend accelerated writeoffs for new food-processing equipment and create a $50-million agriculture innovation fund. It would increase support for the Agriculture and Food Trade Commissioner Service and the Market Access Secretariat to find new markets for Canadian

Bangladesh Adopts Food Security Plan

Bangladesh has adopted a nearly $8-billion plan to ensure food security over the next five years, Food and Disaster Management Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque said April 2. “We have finalized the investment plan for our food security until 2015 and have full support from our development partners to implement it,” he told Reuters. The government


A Boost For Wheat Research

It’s nice to see headlines about the need for more investment into wheat research these days, even if some of the stories swirling around that topic are a mite confused. Last week started with news reports in mainstream dailies across Canada citing a leaked memo from the National Research Council and reporting that genetically modified

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


Youth Travel To Guatemala To Learn About Food Security

Ten youth from across Canada will travel to Guatemala in May to learn first hand about food security issues. The 15-day food tour put on by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank is focused on food justice issues. Guatemala is among the 10 poorest countries in Latin America and it is estimated half of the population lives

Home And Market Garden Losses From Blight Can’t Be Ignored

Most commercial potato farmers sprayed their way through last season and ended up with a normal- enough-looking crop. But 2010 was a heartbreaking year for home gardeners, as a nasty blight worked its way across Manitoba decimating all but the most remote or chemically treated tomatoes. First word of the blight appeared in a June


N. Korea Must Step Up Fight On Foot-And-Mouth — FAO

North Korea’s capacity to detect and contain outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in livestock needs significant strengthening, the UN food agency FAO and the world animal health body OIE said Mar. 24. The FAO and the OIE, which sent a joint mission in the reclusive communist state in late February-early March, said FMD cases have been



Business Risk Management

The importance of planning to be safe on the farm can ever be overemphasized in agriculture. Rural culture is such that for far too long farm families have lived a risky lifestyle, accepting and even celebrating obsessive work habits in the name of staying one step ahead of the weather, saving money or earning more.

Cheap Food Versus Expensive Oil

You can’t have cheap food and expensive oil. It just doesn’t work. For hundreds of millions of people who earn only a dollar or two a day, increasing prices for staple foods like grains, pulses, rice and cooking oil is a big deal. Canadians spend only about 11 per cent of their disposable income on