In Brief… – for Sep. 9, 2010

Contractor dies in fall at greenhouse:An electrical contractor has died of injuries in a fall at Vanderveens’ Greenhouses, a major bedding plant and potted plant operation west of Carman, RCMP reported. The contractor, a 58-year-old man, was on a ladder propped up against a pole where he was unhooking hydro lines on the morning of

New Forecasting System Needed – for Sep. 9, 2010

Asia’s heavy monsoons, a record heat wave in Russia and severe droughts in Africa show the need for new yardsticks to rate extreme weather to guide everybody from road builders to insurance companies, a UN expert said Aug. 13. Scales exist to measure the power of hurricanes or air quality, but there are none to


Pakistan Floods Destroy Crops, Could Cost Billions – for Sep. 9, 2010

Flood recovery costs for Pakistan’s vital agriculture sector and farmers could be in the billions of dollars, as a farmers’ association said half a million tonnes each of wheat and sugar had been destroyed. Agriculture is the mainstay of Pakistan’s fragile economy, while wheat markets are on edge about crop losses after a drought in

In Brief… – for Aug. 26, 2010

Correction:To vote in Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) elections you must be a producer (actual producer or interested party) of one of the seven major grains listed in the act. That has been the case since 1998 when the election of CWB directors was introduced. What ministerial orders changed in the 2006 and 2008 CWB elections


Alfalfa Keeps Water At Bay

“If we have our soils conditioned to where they have increased organic matter, increased water storage and increased infiltration, that may be very important in the future.” – LINDSAY COULTHARD Asoaker of a summer has left farmers with one more reason to love alfalfa. An unforeseen benefit has surfaced at the Manitoba Zero Tillage Research

Celebrating Canada

Canadians are masters of understatement when it comes to celebrating our national pride. Whereas our neighbours to the south belt out the Star Spangled Banner at every opportunity, the national anthem at Canadian events is usually performed, rather than participated in. Everyone but the singer stands awkwardly at attention, some of us humming and only


Canadian Groups Knock UN Climate Change Report

Areport by the Intern ational Panel for Sustainable Resource Management that calls for drastic cuts in animal agriculture shows little understanding of Canadian practices, Canadian farm groups say. “How the world is fed and fuelled will in large part define development in the 21st century as one that is increasingly sustainable or a dead end

Trade Talks Stuck In Past

The surest way to confirm if anyone in Washington, D. C. is telling you the truth about trade is to watch their lips: if they move, they’re stretching the blanket one way or the other. Of course, not many lips have moved on trade last year or this year. Indeed, on the White House to-do


FAO Website To Track Wheat Fungus

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said it had launched a website to track and help prevent the global spread of wheat stem rusts including Ug99, a devastating strain that poses a global threat to production. About 90 per cent of wheat varieties around the world lack resistance to the deadly wind-borne fungus that destroys

Poverty Reduces Wheat Consumption

Consumption of wheat in Pakistan fell 10 per cent last year, because people lost the purchasing power to buy even that most basic of food staples in the south Asian country, a top UN official said June 2. Wolfgang Herbinger, country director for the World Food Program in Pakistan, said declining wheat consumption was a