Roberta Rampton

Manitoba’s Tory government presented the province with a conservative and balanced budget last week, increasing spending by 0.2 percent and holding the line on taxes. But finance minister Eric Stefanson said he’s pleased the province has been able to put a payment of $75 million toward its debt, the first time in 25 years. “We […] Read more

The Manitoba government wants to catch up to the leaps its westerly neighbors have made in agricultural research. Last week, finance minister Eric Stefanson announced the government put $3.4 million into its budget to create the Agri-Food Research and Development Initiative. Agriculture minister Harry Enns said his department is negotiating with the federal government to […] Read more

Chicken Farmers of Canada, the national chicken marketing group, meets next week in an atmosphere of both uncertainty and crisis, several board members said last week. The Quebec chicken marketing board has announced that effective April 1, Quebec no longer will pay levies to the national organization. It would mean CFC would lose almost a […] Read more

Battling a beetle may not sound like much of a fight. But when Ontario potato growers faced a bug that adapted quickly to all their available pesticides, it was hard to keep the upper hand. A horticultural crop adviser with the Ontario agriculture department recently told the war story to a forum on pest management. […] Read more

Farmers may need to make room in their toolboxes in the next few years for some nifty new devices to kill pests. Researchers at a recent pest management forum outlined new methods to help get rid of bugs, weeds and diseases in an age where all three are adapting to traditional, over-used stoppers. Dan Johnson, […] Read more

The past few years have been good ones for the wheat midge. But the memories haven’t been so sweet for farmers who must contend with the larvae of the mosquito-sized orange pest. From the numbers of midge counted in the soil, this year might be no different. Prairie bug scientists have come up with a […] Read more

The risk map for wheat midge stops at the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, but that doesn’t mean farmers in Wild Rose country should ignore the threat. A biologist specializing in pests at Agriculture Canada’s cereal research centre in Winnipeg says there are no documented reports of infested fields in Alberta, but the small orange fly could easily […] Read more

A company known for killing pests in grain bins wants to sell people a system to get the bugs out of their grain handling systems. Hedley Technologies Inc., of Vancouver, recently launched the Loss Reductions Strategies Group to offer market evaluation, education and consulting services on stored grain. The company makes Protect-It, a natural insecticide […] Read more

If cereals will be sold differently in the future, Canada needs to change its strategy for the next round of world trade negotiations. An economist from the Saskatoon-based University of Saskatchewan told last week’s Grain World conference here that the grains industry must focus on how it will make money in the long term. “The […] Read more

When Malcolm Garner looks over the ingredients in the frozen food his company makes, it’s not the grain-based products that make his blood boil. Garner says he pays competitive prices for the flour for tortillas in Old El Paso burritos and the crust of his President’s Choice quiche. He doesn’t argue with the cost of […] Read more