Michael Raine

MOOSE JAW, Sask. – A movable feast for the eyes illuminated the snowy fields, forests, small towns and big cities across Canada earlier this month. Two trains of locomotives, boxcars and coaches, each clad with 10,000 Christmas lights, travelled more than 7,500 kilometres on Canadian Pacific Railway’s coldsteel rails. The trains stopped in about 75 […] Read more

The ban on bovine embryos being imported into the European Union slipped under the radar of most exporting nations. It was so sudden that embryos in transit were caught in limbo. Exporters and their buyers had little or no notice of the new EU law related to the presence of infectious bovine rhinotracheitis or IBR […] Read more

Western Canada’s poultry industry had too many of its eggs in one basket and had to find “someplace to diversify out of the B.C.’s lower mainland.” So Prairie Pride Natural Foods Ltd. announced plans last week to build a $15 million chicken processing facility in Saskatoon. In looking for place to expand, poultry businessperson Bruce […] Read more

The new American rule governing the post-BSE importation of beef cattle and meat may not open the border to other ruminants. Brian Evans, Canada’s chief veterinary officer, said if the rule, which is expected to soon open to 90 days of public commentary, does not also allow sheep, goats, bison and other ruminant species, then […] Read more

Cow-calf research will now be done at the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute and the change in who operates the Western Beef Development Centre is not expected to affect the type of work that the WBDC does. The not-for-profit research centre conducts applied research that brings academic science and economics together in ways that cow-calf producers […] Read more

Gary Coghill of Saskatchewan Agriculture said last weekend’s snowfall has likely put an end to any hopes of crop-drying weather before April. “It is December and traditionally we don’t see a lot of harvest going on in the last month of the year,” he said. The department estimates that 500,000 acres remain unharvested in the […] Read more

Andrew Thomson is writing a $15 million cheque to Western Canada’s veterinary college a couple of years early. Thomson, Saskatchewan’s learning minister, said that while the provincial government had committed to provide the money later, this year’s oil and gas revenues and an improved federal transfer payment schedule made “this and a few other agriculture […] Read more

Canadian Western Agribition’s recent Premier Select Ranch Horse sale drew 21 horses with a sale average of $5,086, with a high of $11,000 and a low of $3,000. Five mares averaged $4,470, with a high of $9,750 paid for the Palamino Kittys Little Jac consigned by Dennis Highmoor of Bowsman, Man., and purchased by Dave […] Read more

REGINA – After a one year hiatus, bison appeared in the show and sale lineup at the Nov. 22-27 Canadian Western Agribition. Tough economic times have plagued the industry for three years. First there were meat processing backlogs, then there was downward pressure on all game-farmed animals due in part to unrelated chronic wasting disease […] Read more

EARL GREY, Sask. – Stephen Brewster is a rarity. He’s young, educated, with work experience in agricultural lending and he’s started farming because he believes it’s a good business decision. And he appears to be reasonably sane. Brewster said despite tight margins, unpredictable trading partners and a “hodgepodge” of government policies that make farming difficult […] Read more