Roberta Rampton

Chris Nykoluk doesn’t know when the next drought will happen. But there’s no question that drought will occur sometime, said Nykoluk, who helps manage community pastures run by the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration. In Saskatchewan, farmers can expect two or three years of drought in every decade, said Nykoluk, a range management biologist with PFRA […] Read more

A footprint should sink no deeper than a centimetre in a field to be seeded to pasture. A firm seed bed is one of several ingredients for establishing a productive pasture that Gerry Duy-nisveld shared with farmers at the recent Manitoba grazing school. The perfect pasture has an even stand, with grasses that quickly grow […] Read more

It’s been 60 years since desperation brought beekeepers together to form a co-operative. Today, farmers involved with the Manitoba Co-operative Honey Producers Ltd. say it’s as important as it ever was to helping them get fair returns for their honey in a business that is not always sweet. “To me, the co-op provides peace of […] Read more

Sixty years ago, most honey came from small mixed farms producing less than 4,500 kilograms from less than 50 hives. Today, half the honey shipped to Manitoba Co-operative Honey Producers Ltd. comes from farmers who ship more than 45,000 kg. “The same thing has happened with honey that’s happened with all the rest of agriculture,” […] Read more

Gerry Friesen expected losses of $50,000 by the end of 1998 on his hog farm at Wawanesa, Man. So the chair of Manitoba Pork was glad to hear about a provincial loans program that will lend up to $50,000 to individual farmers to help cover the cash crunch. But Friesen expects to lose more money […] Read more

The Manitoba government won’t promise to be part of a federal farm aid program, but it will lend $25 to $30 million to farmers who need help. Agriculture minister Harry Enns told reporters about the loans program a few days before Christmas, after describing it to four farm leaders sitting at a boardroom table in […] Read more

Despite the early-1999 focus on designing details of a government farm aid package and a permanent disaster program, agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief says farmers also have an obligation to do as much as they can to help themselves. Looking to governments for aid is no longer an adequate back-up safety net, he said. In a […] Read more

An ideal board of directors disagrees some of the time, acts independently all of the time and has enough expertise to do its job. Whether the first-ever board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board meets these standards is yet to be seen, according to three experts in corporate governance. While they were reluctant to […] Read more

Exporting milk is complicated and controversial, but for long-term survival, the Canadian dairy industry must develop world markets, according to two major processors. “Our competitors are already out there, carving their niches in those marketplaces,” said Bill McLeod, general manager of export development for Dairyworld Foods. McLeod was part of a panel on the industry’s […] Read more

More than two years after their last harvest, Manitoba sugar beet farmers are still waiting for some of the money they are owed. Rogers Sugar Ltd. has not finished paying the growers, even though the company shut down its Winnipeg plant in early 1997. Ken Yuill, a former sugar beet grower from Portage la Prairie, […] Read more