Residents of Rural Alberta, Forget those feelings of Entitlement - You're nowhere near as important as you once were but MAYBE the Times are a Changing I had the privilege of being a resident of rural Alberta in the heady days of the Peter Lougheed era. At the risk of sounding nostalgic, those were the... Read More
Category: Western Canada
After last weeks two posts on the Canada / EU free trade agreement I received several emails from people saying that they believe that this deal will provide limited benefit to the farmer or livestock producer in Canada. The NFU has been very vocal but I find it hard to take much that they say... Read More
I have almost become desensitized to attacks on biotech crops and food. Quite regularly you can watch the news or read the newspaper and hear negative reports that are unfounded and baseless in much fact. Rarely do you hear someone attack the validity of organic food and especially from someone that is from the inside.... Read More
Not since the early 2000's have Canadian feedyards imported US feeder cattle in great numbers. Rumours are swirling that 2010 may be the year that this practice becomes popular again. There is no doubt that this will not sit well with Canadian ranchers due to the possible extra supply dragging down the current healthy calf... Read More
The National Farmers Union (NFU) has been throwing stones at Federal Agricultural Minister Gerry Ritz this week about the EU / Canada Free Trade Agreement that should be finalized by the end of the year. In a recent Better Farming story, NFU President Terry Boehm is quoted as saying....... These measures are so draconian that... Read More
Today the CWB released the October PRO's and the result was a modest increase in comparison to what some thought. With the recent run in corn, the coarse grain complex has some bullish weight behind it. To wrap up the PRO's, I talked to Jonathan Driedger from FarmLink Marketing Solutions. (SEE THE VIDEO BELOW) One... Read More
It continues to amaze me how fast and rapid technology is coming to agriculture to help farmers improve decision making. Since the advent of GPS the possibilities are continually proving to be endless and......very cool. With the ability to take vegetative index readings and then make decisions within 24 hours is truly interesting. What really... Read More
This week I helped out Farms.com by filming the Canola Harvest Watch. I talked to Serfas Farms just south of Lethbridge about how their canola harvest went. The Serfas's are a family operation that farms wheat, barley, canola and silage corn. Mark and Kevin farm with their dad Herb and are based in Turin, Alberta.... Read More
Minimizing the loss of silage is very important in any livestock operation whether you are running a dairy or a feedyard. Silage can be stored in a pit, silo or the bale wrapper. Proper storage is very important feeding requirements. What kind of silage storage you choose will somewhat depend on your farm location or... Read More
We have lots of cows in Canadian Agriculture, but we also have some sacred cows a well. One of these is the ability to shelter income through the cash method of reporting farming income. For those who don€™t know how this works, it is a simplistic formula whereby as long as you have more expenses... Read More