Are you flying blind when it comes to starting your crop? An untested seed lot is exactly that, untested — you don’t know what diseases may be lurking in the bin that could contribute to pathogen load in the field or choke off seedlings before they get a chance to grow. What’s more, variable seed… Read More
Month: March 2015
Remember your parents telling you “If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it!”? Well, thanks to social media, you or yours no longer need to seek permission to give an opinion. You don’t even need anyone to ask you for it. You can just give it freely, and you sure don’t need anyone to… Read More
The Canadian poultry sector is working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to minimize the impact the outbreak of H5N2 avian influenza in the U.S. has at home. Following findings of the highly pathogenic strain, the CFIA has restricted imports of live birds and poultry products from Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and — the big one… Read More
More chatter about new crop acres continues to help the grain market trade sideways as we move towards the second half of March. Domestic corn-for-ethanol and soybean crush demand remains fairly strong, as does canola crush here in Canada which is up 20 per cent year-over-year last week, but the strength of the U.S. dollar… Read More
There’s still no indication when South Korea will lift the temporary ban on Canadian beef it implemented following the discovery of a cow with BSE in Alberta in early February. While the BSE case did not impact trade in most of Canada’s export markets, Korea and several smaller markets temporarily suspended imports of Canadian beef, saying they needed more… Read More
Quebec City’s Laval University plays host to the International Farm Management Congress this year from July 12-15, an event that only takes place every second year in locations all over the world. The congress attracts farmers, advisors, academia, policy makers, researchers, and anyone with a keen interest in farm business management, and Farm Management Canada… Read More
While soybean breeders have focused on boosting top-end yield, they’ve also made the crop more resilient in situations with thin plant stands. Speaking at the CropConnect Conference in Winnipeg last month, Shaun Conley of the University of Wisconsin discussed the “phenotypic plasticity” of soybeans, or the crop’s ability to compensate for lower plant populations. “It’s… Read More
Farm At Hand has launched a t-shirt fundraising campaign to raise awareness of the importance of mental health on the farm. Using the hashtag #HereForFarmers on social media, Farm At Hand’s team wants to raise the profile of this very real, and often silent, struggle of farmers dealing with poor mental health and extreme stress…. Read More
This week, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz introduced the first of the Canadian Beef Branding Series events in Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam. The series is meant to highlight the four pillars of the Canadian beef brand: producer, product, world class standards and sustainability. It’s been a busy few weeks for Canada Beef Inc., also announcing… Read More
Having a good safety plan is critical to a business’s success, enabling higher productivity and higher employee morale. And though it’s certainly on all business managers’ radar, it’s not always formally addressed. Get ahead. Make sure you’re not just giving lip service to safety, but that it’s part of the fabric of your farm’s operational success and lifeblood. Here are five things… Read More
Want a quick summary of what’s happening in the dynamic and diverse world of Canadian agriculture? The TWORA podcast is produced and posted on RealAgriculture.com every Thursday. From farm safety to bee health to Gerry Ritz’s trade mission to Asia, Lyndsey Smith joins host Kelvin Heppner on this week’s news update: Subscribe: iTunes | Android… Read More
While flooding in recent years has underlined the need for a collaborative approach to water management in Western Canada, some farmers and others involved in managing water on farmland are organizing themselves with the aim of creating a common voice focused on sustainable water management that supports agriculture. In Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Farm Stewardship Association was… Read More
The National Bee Health Roundtable (BHRT) recently held its third workshop in Ottawa. The roundtable, a coalition of stakeholders with a direct interest in the health of bees, reports making clear progress over the last year evidenced by the release of the National Bee Health Action Plan. “The collaborative approach of the roundtable, which brings… Read More
Tapping into a new food or food ingredient market takes years of research, market development and buy-in of an entire value chain. It helps, of course, if there’s a ready market for the product, and you’ve got land that needs a new cropping option. That’s the current situation with hazelnuts in Ontario — work into… Read More
While the Canada Grain Act provides farmers with the right to order their own railcars, in reality there have been major challenges for many farmers and their administrators in securing access to producer cars for shipping grain over the last few years. One of the factors contributing to the producer car problem has been an unintended consequence of the federal government’s… Read More