Regulations, farmer voice needed in post-CWB monopoly world

Two vocal advocates for deregulating Western Canada’s wheat marketing are now suggesting farmers need a strong voice and new regulations to protect them from the open market. While free enterprise is the best economic system, it only works when transactions are voluntary and there is true competition, Paul Earl, a former lobbyist against the Canadian

Beef industry still seeking approval to irradiate ground beef

Canadian cattle producers sought Health Canada approval to irradiate 
ground beef more than 10 years ago. They are still waiting.

The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association once thought it would be just a matter of time before Canadian food companies would get the green light to start irradiating ground beef. That was a decade ago, when the CCA submitted a petition to Health Canada seeking regulatory approval for use of irradiation as another tool to reduce pathogens


Entz receives award of excellence

University of Manitoba agronomy researcher Martin Entz is among four people honoured recently at the Organic Connections Conference in Regina for their contributions to organic agriculture. Entz was recognized for the more than three decades of research work into improving organic farming systems by studying crop rotation, green manure management, intercropping and comparing long-term organic

Bayer CropScience provides scholarships

Bayer CropScience Canada Inc. is offering the Bayer CropScience Scholarship for Future Leaders to recognize students who have shown leadership and made a significant contribution to agriculture. Five $5,000 annual scholarships will be awarded at leading Canadian agriculture universities to students who have led the way through leadership and engagement, and made a difference to


Urban poultry enthusiasts want bylaw changed

Winnipeg chicken flocks may still run a “fowl” of the city’s exotic animal bylaw, but activists hope city changes rules

There were a few ruffled feathers at Winnipeg’s city hall when a group came to lobby for the right to keep laying hens in their urban backyards, but city officials are studying the issue. One woman was ordered out of council chambers when she produced a live chicken during a meeting of the city’s protection

Allan Chambers passes

Allan Chambers, a Manitoba farmer who served the farming community and agricultural sector in many capacities over his lifetime, died Oct. 21 at the age of 70. Chambers, who farmed certified seed and beef cattle in the Interlake but later retired to his birthplace near Belmont, Man., was active in producer organizations, municipal politics and


Small towns’ older citizens need new forms of transport

The growing number of mobility scooters in Morris is a glimpse of a future that 
will see Manitoba’s senior population triple in the next two decades

Morris is becoming something of a year-round Sturgis, that granddaddy of U.S. motorcycle rallies — except it’s power chairs and medical scooters, not Harleys, that everyone’s riding. And now it’s got proper sidewalks for those who use the devices. “We’ve got a lot of people riding them in town, probably anywhere from 40 to 50,”

Award-winning Manitoba micronutrient company explains its products

Wolf Trax Innovative Micronutrients is one of those overnight successes 14 or more years in the making. The Winnipeg-based firm and recent recipient of the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation Innovation Award, has been quietly building sales of its patented Dry Dispersible Powder (DDP) micronutrient fertilizer coating in 75 regulatory regions, including the U.S., Mexico


Be careful applying micronutrients, says soil scientist Don Flaten

Some Manitoba soils need micronutrients but “they are very rare,” says Don Flaten, a soil scientist at the University of Manitoba. “We tend to have some of the most fertile soils in North America here (in Western Canada) partly because they’re young,” he said in an interview. “They’re recently glaciated and mixed up and they

MAFRI offered assistance

An Austin-area hog producer turned down assistance from Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI) in the lead up to the eventual euthanization of 1,300 young hogs. “We had discussed options with this producer about other steps he could have taken,” said Dr. Wayne Lees, Manitoba’s chief veterinarian. “We offered assistance.” But that offer of