Today, in Woodstock, Ontario, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and Dave MacKenzie, Member of Parliament for Oxford, announced an investment of $1.6 million to the Canadian Livestock Genetics Association (CLGA) to help open new export markets for Canadian dairy and small ruminants genetics. Last year, the Canadian dairy, sheep and goat industries generated over $120 million in exports…. Read More
Category: Dairy
The persistent buzz and tickle of tiny feet on my face early this morning as the sun rose reminded me that fly season has reached our part of the country once again. Hopefully, most of you will have started your fly management activities months ago, but for those a little slow off the bat, or… Read More
You are probably reading a lot right now about the challenges with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Sheila Pratt with the Edmonton Journal has been focused on the issue as it applies to allegedly reducing labor costs and the mistreatment of workers. Keep in mind that that the temporary foreign worker program is accessed by… Read More
Apps continue to grow and evolve in all aspects of agriculture, with crop commodities eons ahead of their livestock counterparts. Discussions are no longer bound by the confines of a physical community, with information being shared on Twitter, Google+ (check out #cattle and the Cattle Community for a taste of each), Facebook, Instagram and others. If you’re reading… Read More
Some of you reading this have likely either consumed unpasteurized milk, or know someone who has, and been perfectly fine for the experience. Ditto for University of Guelph food scientist Prof. Art Hill, a leading authority on milk safety. Some 50 years ago on the family dairy farm on Manitoulin Island, he drank unpasteurized milk… Read More
As evolution should dictate, there are substantial benefits to social behaviour in animals, provided that behaviour increases their fitness (or likelihood to reproduce). We see unique social behaviour in many species, including ourselves and our bovine counterparts. In cattle, social behaviours range from grooming to bonding, and witnessed accounts of cows protecting their young and… Read More
Feedlot operators are constantly running through a cycle of market highs and lows. When cattle prices are down and feed prices are up, cutting feed costs and improving feed efficiency are top of the list for producers. It was out of one of those particularly tough times in 2011 that the industry began to look… Read More
If agriculture is going to work towards providing quality food for informed consumers, we can’t be throwing each production system under the bus. Conventional agriculture needs to respect organic production as a valid production system (and a valid consumer choice), and organic producers need to stop vilifying conventional production and using misleading and down-right false… Read More
The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture hosted the 2014 Agriculture Trade Summit in Saskatoon in early February. It was there that I met Jennifer Higginson, deputy director of the trade negotiations division of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Higginson’s presentation dealt largely with the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), citing an eventual elimination of over 95%… Read More
I ventured out to the University of Saskatchewan for a nice change of pace this week, meeting up with Eric Micheels, assistant professor, and Eduardo Pina, graduate student. Pina had just returned from a trip to Mexico, where he was interviewing dairy farmers for his masters project (and made it back to Canada just in… Read More
Could something as simple as a gate be driving down the average number of lactations per cow in your herd? Some would say, yes. Ontario field editor Bernard Tobin was on hand at this year’s Canadian Dairy Xpo at Stratford, Ont., and sat down to talk barn design, herd health and more with Joep Driessen, of… Read More
Research out of the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) suggests that radio frequency identification (RFID) tags inserted into an animal’s ear cold not only require more strength to install, they are also much weaker than those installed at room temperature. These findings will no doubt be a warm message on a cold day to producers… Read More
In the battle for agriculture song parody supremacy, Derek Klingenberg has released his newest track. This time it is a spoof on the Miley Cyrus’s hit Party in the USA. This new parody transforms the song into one about feeding cattle. I betcha Miley did not have this version in mind when she wrote the… Read More
The business of food retailing is undergoing significant changes. There is significant consolidation happening, new entrants like Whole Foods, the growth of WalMart and all of this is happening while the consumer market is not growing overall. Just like farming technology is allowing food retailers to lower costs and gain more insight into its operations… Read More
Activists (some would say anarchists) seem to be routinely using the method of releasing shocking undercover videos that attempt to create the perception that all producers are using horrible practices. Whether it be the W5 Poultry video, Ohio Hog Farm Video or any other, this undercover scenario is something that not many producers would be… Read More