Quill Lake, Sask. – It once symbolized the Canadian farmer’s struggle and has now become the workhorse of Saskatchewan farmers feeding the world’s poor. Farm activist Nick Parsons of Farmington, B.C., drove the Prairie Belle more than 11,000 kilometres over two trips – one to Victoria in 1998 and another to Ottawa in 2001 to […] Read more
Stories by Karen Morrison
Consumers embrace local food
BELLEVILLE, Ont. – Eighty Ontario families open their doors to weekly fresh vegetable deliveries from a Prince Edward County market garden. “People want to know the farmer who grows their food,” said Vicki Emlaw of Vicki’s Vegetables near Milford, Ont. Since 2002, the former dairy farm and now a four acre vegetable garden has served […] Read more
Agriculture seen as way to bridge rural-urban divide
BELLEVILLE, Ont. – A rural-urban split is behind the new two solitudes in Canada but one policy adviser believes agriculture can bridge that gap. In the past, French and English Canadians led largely separate lives, forging the phrase two solitudes. “There is a new divide between urban and rural as fewer are connected to the […] Read more
Harvest wrapping up, except in Peace
Harvesters are longing for an Indian summer to help them get off the last of this year’s crop. Alberta is furthest behind at about 65 percent complete, compared to 87 percent in Saskatchewan and a largely complete harvest in Manitoba. Northern Alberta’s Peace region is the most weather challenged at 28 percent done, with rain […] Read more
Sask. chemical container cleanup set for October
Wanted: farm chemical canisters sitting covered in cobwebs at the back of the machine shed. CropLife has teamed up with the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers, the Agriculture Council of Saskatchewan and the governments of Canada and Saskatchewan to create the Saskatchewan obsolete pesticide collection campaign. “Our goal is to get everything out of there,” said […] Read more
Manitoba sunflowers average; demand increasing in U.S.
Manitoba’s sunflower harvest is underway, with desiccation and hard frosts helping dry down the crops this week. Harvested fields are yielding 1,500 pounds per acre, said Arvel Lawson, business development specialist for oilseeds with Manitoba Agriculture. “It does look like some very good crops both for oilseed and confection,” said Lawson, who predicted an average […] Read more
4-H board takes new role
The Canadian 4-H Council has voted unanimously to make governance changes that will help the board become more proactive and less reactive. Mike Nowosad, who becomes the council’s chief executive officer, said the switch to a “policy board governance” model will help the council anticipate what’s coming down the road. “It makes the board a […] Read more
Aster yellows hits canola yields hard
It often looks worse than it is but aster yellows is making significant inroads into canola fields this summer. Derwyn Hammond, agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada at Brandon, said Manitoba producers rarely see more than two percent of plants affected. This year, they have seen as much as 10 percent. “With pods […] Read more
Endangered plants get safe haven
A manila envelope opens to reveal a flattened dry orchid as the acrid smell of mothballs nips at the nostrils. Kirsten Remarchuk, curatorial assistant at the W. P. Fraser Herbarium at the University of Saskatchewan, is used to the odours. She maintains a collection of plants that numbers 170,000 from Canada and around the world, […] Read more
Farmer still upbeat after 80th harvest
COLONSAY, Sask. – Julius and Clara Koopman traded the conveniences of city life in Berlin in 1908 for a sod shack on the virgin prairie in the middle of Canada. “He (Julius) knew nothing of farming and learned by watching his neighbours,” said the couple’s son Harry Koopman, 93. “He was told of cheap land, […] Read more
