Buckwheat snack food impresses at food show

A new made-in-Manitoba snack food has been named one of the top 12 natural foods at an international gourmet food show in San Francisco. Buckshots, a roasted buckwheat snack, may have vaulted the crop from obscurity to significant new interest, too. Many of the Canadian, American, and global buyers attending the 2012 Winter Fancy Food


F.X. Aherne prizes awarded at the Banff Pork Seminar

Garrett Gerbrandt of the Puratone Corporation in Niverville is one of three pork industry innovators honoured with the F.X. Aherne prize for innovative pork production, presented at the 2012 Banff Pork Seminar, held Jan. 17-20. Gerbrandt received the award for his invention of unique, livestock-friendly loading plates for finishing farms, which are used throughout the

Closing gender gap seen key in food security fight

Apolicy aimed at ensuring future security of food supplies must centre around the world’s 500 million smallholder producers, many of whom are women who farm less than two hectares of land, a leading United Nations official said Dec. 14. “Unless they are at the centre of the future strategies for food security, we will not


Qatar’s next big purchase: a farming sector

Qatar’s energy resources have given it one of the world’s highest per capita incomes, a futuristic urban skyline and enough clout to host the 2022 soccer World Cup. But its wealth may not be enough for the arid state to achieve an even more ambitious goal: becoming largely self-sufficient in food. Like other oil-rich, water-poor

EU looking to put the brakes on subsidy gravy train

British farmers will receive smaller subsidies in coming years, U.K. Farming Minister Jim Paice said, adding he favoured its eventual abolition as global food prices rise. “The single farm payment is going to go down,” said Paice, referring to the expected outcome of negotiations about the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy after 2013. Senior EU officials


After the bust, the Irish look back to the land

After the Celtic Tiger died, Anthony Slattery quit his job as an accountant and bought some cows. With food and drinks exports rising by close to a billion euros a year and food firms among the best performers on Ireland’s bruised stock market, agriculture is one of the few sectors to survive a devastating property

Non-farm home grounds award

A Minnedosa, Manitoba gardener won the Fort Distributors Ltd. Shield for Best Country Non-Farm Home Grounds — District Four in the Manitoba Good Roads 2011 Home Grounds Competition. The award will be presented to Erna Stemmer at the association’s annual awards banquet in Brandon in April. Erna’s garden is located just south of town in


Uncertainty surrounds food safety legislation

The food industry wants meaningful consultations with the federal government while it’s preparing new food safety legislation, but so far is only being served promises of more advisory committee meetings. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz plans to introduce legislation in 2012 to overhaul the roles of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Health Canada, and the Public

More on uncertainty and food safety investigations

Our summary last month of the largest foodborne illness outbreak of the last decade in the U.S. (salmonella in green peppers) and in Europe (E. coli in organic sprouts) demonstrated the diabolical complexity faced by food safety regulators when they carry out investigations characterized by deep factual and scientific uncertainty. In both cases, investigators were