Maintaining A Stable “House Of Cards”

Pursuing what people see as most important in life makes sense, but there’s more to life than just work. In psychology textbooks, this is illustrated via Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs,” said Greg Gibson, a clinical psychologist. Shaped like a pyramid, the bottom is occupied by basic animal needs such as water, food, sleep and warmth,

“To Operate As Needed” Is Not What’s Needed

Farm groups, commodity organizations and most ag checkoffs have spent 25 years and billions of dollars refining and repeating their modern message: American agriculture is a business and farmers and ranchers are business people. In the process, cowboys became beef producers and hog farmers became pork producers and a half-million or more of each became


Letters – for Apr. 28, 2011

It is alarming that in this election no one is talking about food sovereignty and security. It should be right up there beside health care because access to affordable, safe, nutritious food can save many health care dollars. According to my cowboy logic, if you eat steak you have a stake in it. The $231

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


CAPI Report Seeks New Direction For Food Policy

Traceability systems could be the catalyst to get Canadian agriculture participants taking a systems approach that could improve quality, efficiency, competitiveness and profits, David McInnes, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute says. McInnes reviewed a report the institute released in February that calls for radical reforms of Canadian agriculture policies

Farm Debate Mostly A Rerun Of Earlier Shows

Other than the occasional elbow in the direction of Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, the two-hour debate among the main political parties on agriculture policy April 11 featured a lot of the same old taunts and promises. Liberal Wayne Easter, Bloc Andre Bellevance and New Democrat Pat Martin, whose downtown Winnipeg riding includes the headquarters of


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

Producers Must Lead Changes In Animal Welfare

Taking good care of animals is a top priority for most livestock producers, one they grew up with and practise daily. But somewhere along the line that message has gotten lost, says Dr. Allan Preston. Today it is consumers, animal activists and the corporate world who have taken over the driver’s seat. “That shouldn’t happen,”


Breakfast Never Needs To Be Boring

ith the sun up earlier each morning now, many of us are getting earlier starts to the day. Mornings should always include eating breakfast, of course, yet many of us skip it. I’ve seen reports that say about 40 per cent skip breakfast, often with the notion that it will help with weight loss. (The

Be Good To Your Heart

Your beating heart is a fist-sized pumping system with four valves and four chambers. Various blood vessels carry blood to and from the heart. It circulates blood to every cell in your body as it pumps an average of 100,000 times per day. The pumping action carries oxygen and nutrients that we need to stay