Karen Briere

HALBRITE, Sask. – Thirsty trees will soon do their part to help this tiny community manage its waste water. Rows of poplar, acute willow and berry bushes next to the municipal lagoon just outside Halbrite form a six-acre, effluent irrigated woodlot. About 300 metres of perforated irrigation pipe connected to the lagoon’s second cell line […] Read more

WEYBURN, Sask. – Rodney Sidloski returned from Africa dispirited and burned out. Ten years as an emergency and development worker in countries such as Sudan and war torn Mozambique had left the Saskatchewan farm boy needing a break. A year off convinced him he wasn’t going to return, at least not permanently, but it didn’t […] Read more

WEYBURN, Sask. – A five-part environmental model developed by HELP International is just common sense, as far as the organization’s founder is concerned. “We would indeed be living in sustainable communities,” Rodney Sidloski said about what the world would be like if it followed his model. Cleaner water, cleaner air and less waste – zero […] Read more

Testing began Oct. 5 to check Saskatchewan’s commercial poultry flocks for avian influenza. Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokesperson Sandra Stephens said the destruction and burial of the 50,000 hens at Pedigree Poultry near Regina Beach, Sask., which tested positive for highly pathogenic H7N3 avian influenza, was completed late last week. Cleaning and disinfection of the […] Read more

Sylvain Charlebois says Canadian egg, dairy and poultry producers should prepare now for the end of supply management as they know it. The University of Regina marketing professor has criticized supply management and marketing boards in the past. Last week, at an event sponsored by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a conservative oriented think […] Read more

Restrictions continued this week on poultry moving in and out of Saskatchewan after confirmation of avian influenza in a broiler breeder operation. All 50,000 birds at Pedigree Poultry near Regina Beach, northwest of Regina, had been destroyed by Sept. 30, three days after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed the presence of the highly pathogenic […] Read more

Lessons learned from an outbreak of the H7N3 strain of avian influenza in British Columbia three years ago have become valuable again. “We’ve been working on a plan for this specific kind of situation for years,” said Joy Smith, general manager of Saskatchewan Egg Producers and co-chair of the Saskatchewan poultry industry emergency management team. […] Read more

Saskferco Products Inc. has begun an $84 million expansion that will increase production but will not likely result in cheaper fertilizer for farmers. Ten years after a 50 percent production increase, the Belle Plaine, Sask., plant will see urea production increase by more than 400 tonnes per day, or 14 percent. Ammonia production will go […] Read more

A prairie-wide mapping project is plotting the locations of noxious weeds to help co-ordinate the fight against them. The University of Brandon’s Rural Development Institute and the Canada Rural Economy Research Lab at the University of Saskatchewan are producing the maps for leafy spurge, scentless chamomile, spotted knapweed and downy and Japanese brome. Environment Canada’s […] Read more

REGINA BEACH, Sask. – The mower that trims the ditch to prevent snow build-up in the winter could also be spreading a noxious weed. Photographs presented at a recent meeting about leafy spurge clearly show how the weed population followed the path and size of a mower. Nancy Gray, an agrologist working with the Invasive […] Read more