dairy cattle in a barn

Consumers top of mind in new dairy program

Four years' worth of funding has been provided to Dairy Farmers of Manitoba to hire and train staff for ProAction program

It’s an initiative that will bring together on-farm food safety, sustainability, milk quality, biosecurity and more. ProAction — a nationwide accreditation program for dairy producers — aims to consolidate a wide variety of best management practices together under one umbrella, something industry representatives believe will streamline auditing and inspection processes for farmers. “We’re trying to

A cause for dairy industry reflection

Milk is not just any food — as the first meal for humans and all fellow mammals, it is literally the giver of life, and as such has spiritual and even religious significance. We have special feelings about milk. One of the most successful advertising slogans in history was Carnation’s “From contented cows.” It connected


Two cattle producers from Mali

The FarmQuest Project: Fanto Samake

A young producer from Mali discovers the challenges and opportunities of raising dairy cattle

As a young boy in Mali, Fanto Samake started out his herd with just three cattle. Samake sees the advantages other farmers have who raise cattle, but it doesn’t come without its own set of challenges. For instance, he can only milk his cows in the rainy season because there isn’t enough grazing pasture for them to produce

Compensation good for all dairy producers

Nearly 600,000 litres of milk left the province and 300,000 more were discarded

Dairy Farmers of Manitoba has reached a settlement with Trans-Canada Pipelines following the explosion of a natural gas pipeline near Otterburne in late January. The fiery pipeline rupture left 4,000 homes and nearly 200 barns without heat. It also shuttered two dairy processors in the area — Parmalat in Grunthal and Bothwell Cheese in New


Two brown calves.

Cows learn better with a buddy

Calves housed individually took longer to adapt to new things

Cows learn better when housed together, which may help them adjust faster to complex new feeding and milking technologies on the modern farm, a University of British Columbia study has found. The research, published in PLOS ONE, shows dairy calves become better at learning when a “buddy system” is in place. The study also provides

Trade deal to hit dairy farmers hard

The Dairy Farmers of Canada estimates milk quota will have to be cut by more than two per cent, 
and producers will collectively see an annual $150-million drop in income

The proposed trade deal with Europe could cost Canadian dairy producers $150 million a year in lost income, according to the Dairy Farmers of Canada. Details of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) are still being hammered out and it’s expected to be two years before the deal is ratified by the European Union’s


ProAction aimed at quantifying quality

Piles of paperwork won’t be the result of a new program that tracks dairy practices and biosecurity, as efficiencies are sought

Manitoba dairy producers are pushing ahead on a national initiative to distinguish Canadian milk products as being among the best in the world. The new initiative, called proAction, will encompass the Canadian Quality Milk program, as well as issues related to animal care, biosecurity, traceability, and environmental sustainability. It will also allow for concrete measurement

Raw milk cheese: Another sterile debate

On Sept. 18 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed one person had died and several people in B.C. and Alberta were ill from eating E. coli-contaminated raw milk cheese produced at a B.C. farm. As soon as the recall was announced, the media went into full frenzy and the usual “debate” about the safety of


Dairy farmer Lisa Dyck launched a line of hand-crafted ice creams made from milk from the dairy farm she and her husband own between Beausejour and Anola.  photo: lorraine stevenson

Made-in-Manitoba ice cream flying off store shelves

Customers are happily forking over between $11 and $12 
for a litre of this premium, made-in-Manitoba ice cream

Lisa Dyck is going lickity split as summer arrives, ramping up production of a cool treat Manitobans haven’t tasted in a long time — made-in-Manitoba ice cream. This spring the Anola-area dairy producer launched Cornell Creme, a premium ice cream made from the milk of the 120 cows that she and husband William Dyck milk.