Category: Ag Policy

A few weeks ago, the Grain Farmers of Ontario encouraged farmers to boycott the Ontario government’s public consultation process concerning new regulations governing access and use of neonicotinoid seed treatments on corn and soybean seed. At the time, GFO stated that there was little to be gained at the public meeting, and that GFO and... Read More

How has farming changed? Put another way, how have expectations of farmers changed? Significantly, says CropLife Canada president and CEO Ted Menzies. And, what’s more, farmers are rising to the challenge. Real Agriculture’s Shaun Haney sat down with Menzies at the recent Grow Canada Conference held at Ottawa, Ontario, earlier this month, to talk about... Read More

What do you think is the largest opportunity for agronomic research in Western Canada? What are the biggest holdups? What's the capacity now and going forward? These are big questions, and questions that deserve an answer. Until recently, though, many discussions about the future of agronomic research in Western Canada stopped at the question of... Read More

Whether it was the rail transportation fiasco in Western Canada, the ongoing country-of-origin labeling dispute with the U.S., the Canada-E.U. trade deal, UPOV '91, bee health, the Canadian Wheat Board...the list goes on — 2014 was another eventful and exciting year in Canadian agriculture. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz joined RealAg’s Kelvin Heppner to look back... Read More

Grain Farmers of Ontario met December 18, 2014, with government representatives to ask the provincial government to abandon the proposed seed treatment regulations and, instead, "support an approach that will work for the complexities of both grain farming and bee keeping." "Family farmers need your commitment to agriculture now," says GFO of the provincial government,... Read More

Guest editorial by Henry Vos, a former Canadian Wheat Board director from Alberta. Editor's note: This week the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, a group that includes some former CWB directors, applied to have the Supreme Court hear their appeal to move ahead with a class action lawsuit against the federal government. The $17... Read More

Ontario has announced the Greenhouse Nutrient Feedwater Regulation. This new regulation, the government says, will streamline environmental compliance and will make it easier for greenhouse growers to comply with regulation regarding the disposal of greenhouse nutrient feedwater. Many greenhouse operators use nutrient solutions to grow their produce. After reusing multiple times, operators sometimes must dispose... Read More

Transparency needs to be built into the federal government’s plan to create a producer payment protection fund for Western Canada, says the chair of Keystone Agricultural Producers’ grains, oilseeds and pulses committee. Farm groups, including KAP, Grain Growers of Canada and the Canadian Canola Growers Association, are generally welcoming Bill C-48, which was introduced in... Read More

Canada's rules and regulations regarding plant breeder's rights adhere to a convention that's over 35 years old, even though there is a more modern, widely accepted convention that's a mere 23 years old — UPOV '91. Bill C-18, currently in the parliamentary process, will bring Canada in line with UPOV '91, a move that has... Read More

What’s the danger of building regulations on a “precautionary principle?” Is the Ontario government’s push to regulate neonicotinoids moving too quickly? That’s part of the discussion that Real Agriculture’s Bernard Tobin had with Paul Wettlaufer and Mark Wales, both of whom are farmers and directors with Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA). In the interview below... Read More