Mary MacArthur

The multinational company that promised neighbourly relations along with a 7,200-sow barn has left the country without paying more than $18,000 that the Alberta provincial court says it owes. Representatives of Taiwan Sugar failed to pay $18,500 in court costs, which the Alberta Court of Appeal said it must pay a community group that opposed […] Read more

Michael Wamsteeker is not looking for a needle in a haystack, but he might as well be. The University of Calgary student, is this summer’s prairie meteorite searcher. It’s estimated that each year 60 recoverable meteorites fall in Alberta. Statistically there should be a meteorite on every section of land in the Prairies, but only […] Read more

Officials at a meat packing plant in Edmonton that was destroyed by fire almost two months ago are planning to rebuild, but may use a new location, said the co-owner of the plant. Dave Rae said the company is working with City of Edmonton officials to find a new location along the Fort Road, but […] Read more

Cattle producers must be vigilant in their animal handling techniques to ensure broken needles don’t end up in meat, says a food safety expert. The caution was prompted by a recent incident in Victoria, B.C., when a woman bit into a shish kebab and discovered a broken needle in the meat. The kebab was made […] Read more

Improvements to a machine that measures smell from feedlots or hog barns will improve the speed of testing air quality near barns and feedlots, says a researcher who worked on the project. Richard Colemen, an independent consultant, said having eight smelling ports in the olfactometer, the recognized way to measure odour, will give scientists more […] Read more

A southern Alberta horse has tested positive for West Nile virus. It’s the first positive case of West Nile virus in a horse on the Prairies this year. The virus was discovered Aug. 9 in a horse from Picture Butte. This is the second horse in Canada to test positive. The other horse was in […] Read more

Canadian producers who stop cattle owned by members of the U.S.-based R-CALF group from being slaughtered in Canada are hurting their own cause of trying to get the U.S. border opened, says a Montana member of the U.S. protectionist group. “All they’re going to do is stall the time for opening the border. We’ve been […] Read more

EDMONTON – It may not be illegal for packing plants to triple their profits when cattle producers are going broke, but the rules that allow unfair profits have to change, says an Alberta cattle producer. “There’s some real restructuring that needs to be done,” said High River cattle producer Grant Hirsche. He started selling his […] Read more

EDMONTON – One of the biggest dangers to the Canadian cattle industry isn’t the American border staying closed, but the threat that Canada could lose world markets because it doesn’t test enough cattle for BSE, says Alberta’s auditor general. “The most important recommendation of all is to make sure Alberta meets its share of the […] Read more

The Alberta government has declared an agricultural emergency, the first step to launching another BSE aid program, said the Alberta New Democratic opposition. ND leader Brian Mason said the July 27 provincial order-in-council declaring a BSE emergency for the upcoming year gives the government access to the province’s billion-dollar sustainability fund. “This gives them access […] Read more