Nearly 3,500 livestock producers in Saskatchewan who were eligible for drought assistance through the AgriRecovery program launched last October will be receiving a top-up of up to $50 per head from the federal and provincial governments. Provincial agriculture minister David Marit announced the additional payments during a visit to the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association head office… Read More
Author: Kelvin Heppner
Kelvin Heppner, field editor for RealAgriculture, has been reporting on Canadian agriculture since 2008(ish). When he's not working on a story, he's usually in a chicken barn or a field, as he also farms with his family near Altona, Manitoba.
Editor’s note: Updated with CDC confirmation of a human HPAI case in Texas. U.S. animal health authorities say they cannot rule out cow-to-cow transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) after detecting bird flu in dairy herds in another three states. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) has confirmed the presence… Read More
There’s no better place to conduct practical agronomic research than in the real world, under the same conditions, using the same equipment and management practices. That’s the premise underlying the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers’ On-Farm Network, a farmer-driven research program that was officially launched 10 years ago, in 2014. “We really saw a need… Read More
The union that represents more than nine thousand CN and CPKC railway workers is organizing a vote to approve strike action, raising the prospects of a rail work stoppage as early as late May if several deals are not reached before then. Members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) will begin voting electronically on… Read More
A mysterious illness affecting older dairy cows in the southern U.S. appears to be caused by the same virus that has infected millions of domestic and wild birds over the past few years. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said milk samples from sick animals on two dairy farms in Kansas and one in… Read More
One of the most commonly-used tools for fighting insect pests will be missing from the toolbox in many situations on Canadian farms again in 2024. There’s been no change to the label for products that contain lambda-cyhalothrin, such as Matador and Silencer, heading into the 2024 growing season, says Ian Epp, agronomy specialist with the… Read More
Exports from Canada face growing uncertainty as governments around the world look inward in an effort to gain votes. Whether it’s the collapse of the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement process, individual countries introducing new technical trade barriers, or politicians deploying subsidies and tariffs in the name of more domestic jobs, the world is generally… Read More
There’s plenty of excitement for both economic and environmental reasons about the potential for biological nitrogen fixation for corn and other crops that don’t fix their own nitrogen, but a soil scientist from North Dakota State University says farmers and agronomists should be asking several key questions before counting on added organisms to supply N… Read More
Approval of a biotechnology reform bill in the European Parliament last month has been hailed as a major breakthrough toward allowing “new genomic techniques,” such as gene-editing, to be used in crop breeding in Europe. The bill still faces an uphill battle to become law across the European Union, but the vote was one example… Read More
The Canola Council of Canada’s board has elected a new chair following the council’s annual general meeting, which was held on Thursday morning during the 2024 Crops Convention in Winnipeg, Man. Tessa Ritter, who also works as Viterra’s stakeholder relations manager, has been chosen to lead the canola industry group’s board of directors. She succeeds… Read More
There’s a long list of known ways in which wildfire smoke can negatively affect corn and other crops, but could the overall effect of the smoky haze in summer potentially be positive for yields? It’s a complex question to answer, says Dan Quinn, extension corn specialist with Purdue University, in this Corn School episode recorded… Read More
The chief commissioner of the Canadian Grain Commission says he will retire at the end of April. Doug Chorney informed staff at the CGC of his decision earlier this week. Chorney, who also farms at East Selkirk, Man., has served as a commissioner at the CGC for the past seven years. He completed a three-year… Read More
Bayer’s CEO has ruled out the possibility of spinning off the company’s crop science division as a separate business. In a news conference on Tuesday, Bill Anderson said the company has completed a thorough review of its current structure, which includes three divisions: pharmaceuticals, consumer health, and crop science. He said the company will not… Read More
Trade ministers from the World Trade Organization’s 164 member countries can agree on at least one basic thing about the WTO’s dispute settlement process: they’re still committed to fixing the broken system for resolving trade disputes. Beyond that, there were few signs of progress as trade representatives, including Canada’s Mary Ng and the United States’… Read More
Scientists and plant breeders have their sights set on root rots, given the risk that one in particular — aphanomyces — poses to pea and lentil production in Western Canada and the Northern Plains. Federal funding for a new five-year Pulse Crop Research Cluster, leveraged by funding from farmer check-off organizations, was announced earlier this… Read More