Alan Harman

New deputy ag minister Gord Nystuen has left his position as Saskatchewan’s deputy agriculture minister to become chief of staff to premier Lorne Calvert. Nystuen had served as deputy minister to Clay Serby since September 2000. Hal Cushon has been named acting deputy. He has worked for the department for several years and was most […] Read more

LONDON, U.K. (Reuters) – Britain announced last month what could be the world’s first case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease being transmitted during a blood transfusion. It is not certain whether the unidentified patient, who died earlier this year, had been infected through blood transfusion but health officials said it could not be ruled out. The […] Read more

While some of his neighbours saw the trees and brush on their northern grainbelt land as a nuisance to be cleared, Dave Halland’s father saw the wood as a treasure. When he homesteaded in 1934, he kept his brush, harvested trees from it and taught his son woodlot management. Halland did the same with his […] Read more

Saskatchewan Environment has a limited number of trees available for farmers interested in experimenting with small woodlots. Martha O’Sullivan said the department has some free rooted Walker poplar available. “They have been the most successful in terms of growth and yield. It has been used for years in shelterbelts, as have been other types of […] Read more

CANBERRA, Australia – Canada could become involved in free trade talks with Australia if the Australian government loses the election later this year. Polls are showing that the opposition Labor party could defeat the coalition government of prime minister John Howard. Howard is pushing hard for bilateral free trade talks with the United States, but […] Read more

CANBERRA, Australia – Australian farm leaders are concerned about how the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas will hit pocketbooks in their country. They fear losing a number of important global farm trade liberalization allies – who are also farm trade competitors – to the bloc. Australian beef producers are concerned that Uruguayan and […] Read more

CANBERRA, Australia — Two of Australia’s key wheat and barley marketers have formed an international alliance in a bid to buy South Australia’s Ports Corp. AWB Ltd. and ABB Grain have formed a consortium with the French infrastructure development firm Bouygues Travaux Publics and the French port of Rouen, the largest grain-exporting port in Europe. […] Read more

CANBERRA, Australia – Australian researchers who developed a DNA test that can identify a lamb’s parents have also discovered a strong pecking order among rams. The technology was developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and involves matching a small blood sample from the lamb with the DNA of the parents. CSIRO said […] Read more

CANBERRA, Australia – A university study has confirmed what has long been assumed about farmers. The study, from the University of Queensland, concluded that farmers are independent people who dislike crowds, enjoy being alone on the land and are distinctly different from their urban brothers and sisters. The two-year study by the university’s School of […] Read more

A new place has been set at the agricultural research table of the University of Saskatchewan. The Eco-Agriculture Enhancement Chair has been created through a $500,000 donation, over five years, by the hunting and conservation organization Ducks Unlimited Canada. Brian Fowler, a research scientist at the University’s Crop Development Centre, will be the first to […] Read more