Late last month, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture elected members of its new board — including Don McCabe, who farms in Lambton county, as the new president. Shortly after the annual meeting, Real Agriculture’s editor, Lyndsey Smith, caught up with McCabe to talk about opportunities and challenges facing the Ontario farmers as we move into… Read More
Category: Eastern Canada
The FarmTech Conference always reaches max capacity well ahead of the conference start date. Why? Attendees and organizers alike will tell you it’s the calibre of speakers and the network of farmers and industry who attend that make this Edmonton-based event a must-attend. This year’s early bird deadline is January 9, 2015. Real Agriculture’s Jason… Read More
Pre-production work and fundraising has started for a million dollar film project aimed at informing people about the use of biotechnology in food and farming. “Know GMO: An Uplifting Discussion About Food” will explore the impact of genetic modification, asking questions about how to feed a growing human population, says Rob Saik, the executive producer… Read More
Grains started the month of December with wheat in the driver’s seat thanks to concerns out of Russia and Australia. In the Land Down Undaa, ABARES, the Aussie version of the USDA, cut its official wheat production estimate by one million tonnes (or about four per cent from its previous estimate) to 23.22 million tonnes,… Read More
The Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO) have publicly asked its members not to attend next week’s government-hosted public consultation meetings. The meetings are slated for Tuesday in London, Ont., and Thursday in Toronto, to discuss the impending increased regulations required for access to neonicotinoid seed treatments. Barry Senft, CEO of GFO, says his organization feels there’s… Read More
A media training exercise I do with some of my colleagues is to get farmers to pitch us agriculture stories, and we respond like journalists would. It’s a bit exaggerated — the farmers don’t have much time to think about their stories, and we kick back when the pitch is made, to ensure they’ve covered… Read More
Traders and analysts were taken aback by some of the key numbers in the crop production report from Statistics Canada released on Thursday morning. While the market was expecting a higher canola production estimate, it was not anticipating the major increase from the StatsCan estimate of 14.1 million metric tonnes in October to 15.6 million in… Read More
The discovery of avian flu in BC, StatsCan’s latest crop production estimates, Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers and more — get caught up on this week’s farm news by listening to the TWORA podcast with Kelvin Heppner for December 4th, 2014: Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | All Podcasts
Panel thus morning about Grain Strategies exchange rates, freights, GMO’s, all in buying decisions #GaryinGeneva pic.twitter.com/UItItUj3Hb — Gary Stanford (@senatrstanford) November 13, 2014 Many in Western Canada may be surprised to learn that the Triffid flax fiasco of 2009 is still weighing heavily on the minds of some European customers. That’s according to Gary Stanford,… Read More
The Grain Farmers of Ontario has announced it will not participate in the Ontario government’s public consultation meetings being held in London, Toronto, and Kingston, beginning next week. The meetings are part of what the Ontario government is calling the consultation process on what final regulations regarding access to and use of neonicotinoid seed treatments will… Read More
This year’s growing season is not likely to be forgotten for a very long time — and, unfortunately, not for great reasons. A late, wet, tough spring, widespread white mould in the beans and down-right cold break in the summer all cumulated in a long, drawn out harvest that’s headed into the holiday season for… Read More
The Canadian agriculture sector is welcoming the ratification of the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement in both countries’ Parliaments. After being approved by the Korean government this week, International Trade Minister Ed Fast announced Wednesday that the CKFTA will come into force on January 1st, 2015. As discussed previously on RealAg, the deal is expected to help Canadian… Read More
According to John Scott, JM Scott Management Services, gourmet burgers were something born of North America’s 2008 economic downturn. “People went to the hamburger, because it’s a comfort food. And then, over a period of time…people said, ‘you know what, I’d like something a bit better.’” That’s when, as Scott says in the video below, a… Read More
Imagine it’s the year 2030. What will a typical Canadian farm look like? Will the logistical challenges on the Prairies have been solved? How much will farmland be worth? What kind of game-changers will there be that may have increased crop yields? How can you prepare your farm? Anybody can make predictions about the future,… Read More
When the Grain Farmers of Ontario rushed to create a new coalition of farm groups, known as Farm Action Now, there was a sense that legislation was in the works in which the government would steer away from evidence-based regulatory decisions, and instead pander to an environmental lobby that had a lot of scare factor… Read More