Michael Raine

A new crop is sprouting from prairie soil this spring. Hog barns. And like any other crop, inputs will be necessary to grow them. Three more hog production facilities are being proposed for Saskatchewan, all destined for areas that have few hogs now. Meadow Lake, Sask., is the planned home for a Big Sky Pork […] Read more

MORRIS, Man. – Losing one’s home is bad enough, but for farmers in the Red River Valley the situation will be much worse. “Not only is your home damaged but your livelihood too. Now that is bad,” said Lorie Peters, a Grande Point, Man. farmer. She and husband Vern pumped water away from their dairy […] Read more

EMERSON, Man. – Stronger winds and rising water forced emergency workers to abandon the first Canadian settlement on the Red River to meet the flood. Emerson, Man. is being evacuated of all but a small skeleton crew. Emptied of most of its population over a week ago, the town of 700 takes on an eerie […] Read more

LETELLIER, Man. – Emergency vehicles patrol the streets. Caterpillars and trucks add two metres to the earthen barricade that surrounds the town. Soldiers fill sandbags. Airforce helicopters land, take off and fill the air with ominous thumping. Refugees stream through checkpoints in cars packed to the rooftops. It is not a war zone, but it […] Read more

Farm equipment is often in the wrong place at the wrong time when flood waters flow. Whether frozen to the ground, surrounded by melt water, snow or mud, the equipment often is not accessible. Getting that water out after the fact can be tedious but it’s necessary if producers are going to avoid big bills […] Read more

Farmers are among the highest paid people in Cuba. That doesn’t mean farmers are rich. Instead it reveals deep problems in the nation’s economy. The country’s economic development has been slowed by an American bill, the Helms-Burton law, designed to isolate Cuba from the rest of the world, said Oxfam Canada worker Minor Sinclair. “Helms-Burton […] Read more

If more than 20,000 signatures from Saskatchewan citizens is an indicator, a four-month campaign to save the 60-year-old CBC from federal budget cuts has found grassroots support. Carrying 10 kilograms of paper signed by residents from across the province, Brenda Baker, Saskatchewan captain of the CBC Ours to Keep campaign, climbed aboard a flight bound […] Read more

COURVAL, Sask. – A gasoline engine belches blue smoke into the grey, cold air as it pumps muddy water from Gordon Anderson’s darkened basement. The water pours through black plastic hose onto plywood set in the farmyard mud. It will join more water flowing away from the farm where it has sat for three days, […] Read more

DAFOE, Sask. – Four of a kind is hard enough to get in a poker hand, let alone in a farmyard. Quadruplet Shorthorn calves were born to a Dafoe, Sask. cow two weeks ago. The unassisted birth took place over a few hours and yielded two female and two male calves. “We called the University […] Read more

Tax time on the farm is enough to send the children fleeing to a sound proof part of the house, the dog to seek refuge out in the cold and hair loss to occur below the cap line. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just sit down at the computer, answer a few simple […] Read more