Kelvin Heppner returns to host this week's news podcast, recapping some of the main ag stories from the past week, including the end of an era in futures trading in Chicago, a weather forecast for the rest of winter and spring in Western Canada, keeping nutrients out of the Great Lakes and what "sustainable" looks... Read More
Category: Eastern Canada
Damian Mason is a professional speaker, writer and farm owner who believes farmers should treat their operation like the profession it is. “I want them to stand up for themselves, I want them to be prideful in what they do and where they’re from, I want them to treat it as a profession,” Mason told... Read More
This week marks the third annual Canadian Dairy Xpo at Stratford, Ont., and both Shaun Haney and Bernard Tobin are there capturing the latest in dairy production information. (Watch the site in the next few days as we’ll be posting coverage of the keynote speakers!) Yesterday, Ontario’s minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs, Jeff... Read More
Every year, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture calculates the date by when the average Canadian has earned enough income to pay for their annual grocery bill, and dubs the day “Food Freedom Day.” This year, Food Freedom Day occurs on Friday, February 6th — one day earlier than in 2014. With 2015 being the "International... Read More
As Bill C-18 — The Agricultural Growth Act — makes its way through the parliamentary process, questions linger around what the bill does and doesn’t mean for Canadian farmers. Will the changes to Canada’s Plant Breeders’ Rights act mean you can you still save seed? Will the adoption of UPOV ’91 make seed more expensive?... Read More
The governments of Canada and Ontario are investing $4 million annually over the next four years ($16 million total) to establish the Great Lakes Agricultural Stewardship Initiative. Targeted to the Lake Erie basin and the southeast shores of Lake Huron, the initiative is designed to "help farmers improve soil health and promote environmental stewardship." The... Read More
With the overall goal to benchmark the sustainability of Canada’s beef industry, the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB) is currently looking for producer participation. “Verifiable sustainability is a ‘want’ of our major customers, and we are being given the opportunity to define what that looks like,” said Cherie Copithorne Barnes, CRSB chair, in the... Read More
Grain and oilseed markets showed little reaction to the latest stocks estimates from Statistics Canada released on Wednesday. The agency’s December 31st, 2014 stocks numbers were generally in line with trade expectations, with all-wheat pegged at 24.8 million tonnes and canola at 11.1 million (see all the numbers here.) Traders were expecting 25 million tonnes... Read More
Soil moisture observations collected by a new NASA satellite will be used for a number of agricultural applications in Canada. The space agency launched the SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) satellite on Saturday, January 31st — it’s the first satellite dedicated to monitoring soil moisture levels around the globe. Jarrett Powers, manager of Agriculture and... Read More
Not only are there environmental benefits to improved soil biology, but there are economic incentives as well, says a farmer from Ohio who spoke about cover crops and a systems approach to microbiology at the SoilSmart conference in Waterloo, Ont., in late January. Jeff Rasawehr joined Bernard Tobin to discuss six steps for establishing healthy... Read More