Do North American Farmers Really Feed The World?

We recently ran across a belt buckle from the 1980s that read, “The American Farmer feeds the world.” For many producers, that statement underlies much of what they do from their on-farm decision-making to the policies they support. As the 1996 Farm Bill was being debated, we remember talking to farmers who wanted to “get

Red River Flood Threat Looms Again

Last week Melvin Edel was looking out the kitchen window at machinery surrounded by four-foot snowbanks and hay bales frozen to the ground. But in a month or so, his farm south of Morris will be under several feet of water, and all he can do is wait. Manitoba Water Stewardship last week predicted a


Ritz Says Farm Groups Wanted Budget Passed

Buoyed by endorsements from farm groups for the 2011 budget, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz lashed out at opposition parties March 23 in what sounded more like an election rally than a news conference. “The coalition of opposition parties should explain why they will vote against the budget that has the support of farm groups,” said

Include Children In Your Farm Safety Plan

Unlike most other industries, in farming, the workplace is also usually the home. Adults frequently work with their children nearby and that can increase the risk of children getting injured. “Farm life can put families in situations that are uncommon to the average household,” says Greg Stewart, president and CEO of Farm Credit Canada (FCC).


To Clear-Cut Or Not, That Is The Question

Tree huggers think clear-cutting is a sin, but woodlot foresters say it’s sometimes the right thing to do. “There’s basically two stand types in southern Manitoba,” Carol Graham, a MAFRI woodlot forester based in Souris, said at a recent presentation at the Forester’s Memorial Hall in Baldur. “The one that’s most prevalent is an even-aged

Just Being Neighbourly

The sound of a skidoo squealed through the air on a recent sunny morning. Our driveway had succumbed to yet another blast of hard-drifted snow, and we had been snowbound at home for eight days. Even the municipal plow had tried and failed to crack through this latest solid mass. It had gotten stuck and


Conservation Is Cheaper Than Restoration

What’s the difference between a poor country and a rich one? From the air, sometimes it’s obvious, as in the border between the impoverished – and almost totally deforested – Haiti, and the lush green hills of the much-wealthier Dominican Republic. Clearly, two different management styles are at play along the border between those two

High Grain Prices Won’t Last Forever

High grain prices make farmers happy, but they make market analyst Chuck Penner nervous. It’s not that Penner, with LeftField Commodity Research, doesn’t like high prices. His apprehension comes from knowing sometime those prices will fall. When prices last spiked in 2007-08 at close to these levels, they went a bit higher and then fell


Photography Just One Of Various Talents

Alyssa Krahn, a young woman who has grown up on the family farm near Rivers, Manitoba has a unique eye for capturing life with her camera. At the Annual Art and Photography Show at Prairie Crocus Regional Library in Rivers, she had her photography on display and it brought many comments from attendees saying that

Make Hay When The Sun Shines — Or Not

Why make hay? At first blush, the answer to the question U.S. grazing consultant put to producers attending the recent Manitoba Grazing School was so obvious a teenager could answer it. Well duh – we make hay to feed livestock through the winter (stupid.) Nobody really thinks about it, other than to manage the mechanics