Mary MacArthur

EDMONTON – For 50 years, Alberta farmers have sat down at the kitchen table, turned on their radios and eaten their lunch to Call of the Land. Listening to the noon farm show has become as much a part of farm life as rain and wheat fields. Host Jack Howell’s smooth voice has delivered the […] Read more

Elk and deer ranchers in Alberta will soon be allowed to slaughter animals on their farms for their own consumption. The Alberta government recently introduced amendments to the act governing the industry. Before, when elk and deer ranchers wanted to slaughter an animal to eat for themselves, they had to take it to an approved […] Read more

A week after U.S. homeland security secretary Tom Ridge raised the terror threat alert level, Canadian livestock trucks were crossing the border without added delays. “They’re rolling along,” said Mark Wendorff, truck dispatcher for Primrose Livestock in Lethbridge. “It’s business as usual,” said Wendorff, who sent 18 trucks of cattle across the Coutts, Alta., and […] Read more

SEDGEWICK, Alta. – Alberta farmers may be split on the value of the Canadian Wheat Board, but those attending a recent CWB meeting were united in their opposition to Roundup Ready wheat. Farmers at a wheat board accountability meeting in Sedgewick were unanimous in their opposition to its introduction after a call for a show […] Read more

The storks were busy in 1923, delivering not only a bouncing baby Western Producer, but also a new generation of all-purpose farm tractors. The Farmall from International Harvester and John Deere’s Series D joined Henry Ford’s Fordson to revolutionize the North American farm scene toward a lighter and lower cost tractor. A post First World […] Read more

Prairie farmers may have lost the battle against gophers even before the snow melts. For the second year in a row, farmers will not be able to get enough strychnine to control Richardson’s ground squirrels that eat crops and dig up fields. Cameron Wilk, Saskatchewan’s pesticide specialist, estimates his province’s farmers will get about 15 […] Read more

VANCOUVER – The North American Free Trade Agreement has become a focus of farmer unrest in Mexico, sparking protests for the Mexican government to change it, or get out of the deal all together. Yet the real culprit, according to a Mexican senator, is the country’s internal policies, which were not adjusted when NAFTA came […] Read more

EDMONTON – A little cooking oil and a dash of cinnamon were ingredients in the launch of the federal government’s new food recall program. Federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief rolled up his sleeves to show a group of Grade 4 students from Westglen School in Edmonton the importance of hand washing to staying healthy. Vanclief […] Read more

EDMONTON – The Alberta government may have a laundry list of disagreements with the federal government, but it doesn’t have a problem with the new agriculture policy. “I’m proud that we were one of the first signatures to the agricultural policy framework,” Alberta agriculture minister Shirley McClellan told federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief during the […] Read more

Farmers looking for star performers in this year’s varieties of barley and oats put forward for registration aren’t likely to find them. But they will find varieties that have taken steady steps toward better yields and disease resistance, said Jim Dyck, secretary of the barley and oats subcommittee of the Prairie Registration Recommending Committee for […] Read more