An outbreak of Neurotropic Equine Herpes Virus-1 has spread from the United States to Canada. Horses became infected at a cutting horse event in Utah held from late April to early May. Cases have arisen across the northwestern United States and in British Columbia and Alberta. B.C. has seen three cases and Alberta has one […] Read more
Stories by Bryn Levy
Glad to be summering in Saskatchewan at the Producer
Things certainly have a way of coming full circle. Growing up, I always knew that once school was done, it wouldn’t be long until my mom would pack my sister and I into the station wagon and hit the road from our house in Calgary to visit my grandparents’ farm near Radisson, Sask. Now, decades […] Read more
Chair of Maple Leaf Foods, Wallace McCain, dies
Wallace McCain, chair of Maple Leaf Foods Inc. and co-founder of the McCain frozen food company, died at the age of 81 due to pancreatic cancer. McCain and his brother, Harrison, started the frozen food company that bears their name in their hometown of Florenceville, New Brunswick in 1956. Today the company is one of […] Read more
Twenty-nine dogs seized from Sask. farm
Huskies from a farm near the village of Bulyea, Sask., have arrived at the Saskatoon SPCA after animal protection officers and RCMP officers seized them Wednesday morning. The seizure came after a lengthy investigation by the SPCA into complaints from neighbours who said dozens of Huskies were being kept on the property without adequate food […] Read more
The seamy, sinister side of soil
Traditionally, soil is viewed as a benign substance. It’s seen as a carrier of plant nutrients, a seed bed for growing crops or a place to grow feed for animals. But sometimes soil carries more than nutrients and helpful microorganisms. There are diseases that can lurk unseen in soil for years, even decades, waiting to […] Read more
Research pioneers of soil science
In the sciences, it is often said that today’s practitioners stand on the shoulders of giants. This is certainly true of soil science. Today’s soil scientists benefit from decades of painstaking work conducted by their forebears. Building on this work, soil scientists have been able to make advancements that have helped today’s farmers increase yields, […] Read more
Ag knowledge, gained in WP internship
They parked a combine on the front lawn, and I still don’t have a clue how it works. In the column I wrote to introduce myself back in September, I said I hoped I would come away from my internship atThe Western Producer with at least some idea of what the buttons in my grandfather’s […] Read more
Rural high-speed; victim of its success
Greg Dow faces a problem all too familiar to many rural Canadians. He’s stuck with dial-up internet connection that he hates. “It’s not very good,” said the farmer from Craik, Sask. “They say we get 26.4 (kilobytes per second). We never get that. It freezes up all the time. It’s so slow that I can’t […] Read more
Small-scale local food production works for young farmer
In a business where the trend has been toward going grey, the National Farmer’s Union heard a presentation from a young producer who believes he has found a model that will encourage young people to come back to farming. Tim Shultz and his wife, Carla, started the Green Ranch in 2007 by renting land from […] Read more
Scientists turn off apple’s brown gene
A Canadian company is trying to bring a genetically modified apple to the U.S. market. Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc.’s Arctic apple has been modified so that an enzyme responsible for turning the fruit brown is turned off. Neil Carter, the company’s president, thinks the Arctic apple could help reverse declining consumption rates in North America. […] Read more
