Diane Rogers

Make parents responsible for their misbehaving kids and dish out sterner penalties. That is how councillors from small-town Saskatchewan would handle crime. The mayor of Zenon Park was applauded for his comments at a Nov. 26 meeting in Saskatoon of the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association that discussed community policing. Allan Georget said “cops spend too […] Read more

COALDALE, Alta. – The yellow dog paws, then crunches into a potato laying outside the bungalow-sized storage bin. “We eat a lot of potatoes,” admits Ann-Marie Sera. That goes for the three dogs as well as the humans on this southern Alberta potato farm run by Sera and her brother, Ian McGillivray. Harvest is over […] Read more

WINNIPEG – Children whose parents own businesses such as farms have a financial advantage over others. Their parents can pay them a salary to do work. It enables the child to start saving early and allows the farm family to reduce its overall tax bill by splitting income. In a session offering tax tips to […] Read more

Farm women are fooling themselves by saying they are just housewives. And an American researcher has the numbers to prove that women work harder on the farm than they’ll admit. Deborah Reed told an international health and safety conference held recently in Saskatoon that she did a survey of 990 women on Kentucky farms. These […] Read more

WINNIPEG – The shared experience of giving birth may make women better animal handlers than men, says a Manitoba Agriculture veterinarian. They are generally more gentle in working livestock, Allan Preston told the Manitoba Farm Women’s Conference held here last week. That may be because women can’t overpower the cow or because of an empathy […] Read more

PASQUA, Sask. – It will take more than 70 combines and a lot of co-ordination. But Barry and Eva Forge are already plotting how they can beat the world record combine harvest set this fall by their fellow food-aid donors in Westlock, Alta. Two years ago, the Forges primed the pump of generosity in their […] Read more

It is usually just one more straw that breaks a farmer’s spirit, say mental health professionals. “Farmers do handle high levels of chronic stress but have problems when complicated by a new acute stress,” said Gene Graham, of the New York Centre for Agricultural Medicine and Health. He told a health and safety conference in […] Read more

Rural health will get a good checkup as 300 speakers give presentations at five different but related conferences in Saskatoon Oct. 18-23. About 500 delegates from 22 countries in North America, Europe and Australia are registered for the fourth international symposium on rural health and safety. During the week the first international conference on rural […] Read more

When a Victoria, B.C. couple asked through The Western Producer’s letters’ page if they should go farming on the Prairies, they got 45 letters. All but six of the responses said, “Don’t do it.” It was not a positive message but Chris and Jill Marshall are not discouraged. They still plan to ease out of […] Read more

Only three women, one in each prairie province, are running along with 62 men in the Canadian Wheat Board elections. Campaigning are Connie Blixhavn of Killarney, Man., Colleen Bianchi of Coutts, Alta., and Margaret Ellard of Moose Jaw, Sask. Blixhavn said she is running as a director in District 10 because “I was afraid of […] Read more