Tracy Tjaden

When Cathey Day gets stumped at work, she won’t likely crack a textbook to find the answer. Working as a rural home economist in southwestern Manitoba for almost 10 years, Day said she often looks to her own experience growing up and now raising a farm family of her own. If that doesn’t work, she […] Read more

ROSSBURN, Man. – Southwestern Manitoba cattle producers say their herds wouldn’t be plagued by a second tuberculosis outbreak if federal food safety inspectors had done their job six years ago. About 100 producers packed the town hall here Dec. 16 during a public meeting called after tuberculosis turned up two months ago in routine autopsies […] Read more

A guilty verdict handed down in a Dauphin, Man. courtroom Dec. 11 could sway the balance in a similar case involving 12 prairie farmers charged with illegally exporting grain to the United States. Clayton Desrochers, a 23-year-old Baldur, Man. farmer, was convicted on two charges: Failing to report his barley exports in writing and unlawfully […] Read more

Maple Leaf’s $112 million pork plant to be built here is getting the thumbs up from one of the city’s most outspoken environmentalists. Bill Paton said the hog plant’s stand-alone waste treatment facility, separate from the city plant, has fueled his optimism. “It will operate completely on its own,” said Paton, a botany professor at […] Read more

What’s great news to Harry Enns is downright frightening to Bill Paton. Manitoba’s agriculture minister says Maple Leaf’s new $112 million hog plant in Brandon will be the confidence booster farmers need to keep increasing the province’s hog production. Enns told a pork industry meeting here last week some $60 million in construction of hog […] Read more

Striking workers at Maple Leaf’s Edmonton plant want Canadians to boycott all Maple Leaf products after the company announced Brandon would be home to its new $112 million cut and kill plant. “We’ll certainly be extending the boycott into there,” said John Ventura, a business representative with the United Food and Commercial Workers in Edmonton. […] Read more

In the mid-1980s, Elmer Kaskiw learned a hard lesson about the risks of growing winter cereals. The Shoal Lake, Man. producer was a big fan of winter wheat until an onset of rust decimated his crop in 1986. “It basically ended up being a crop disaster and there was no fungicide at that time for […] Read more

Stan Yaskiw likes to take the wait-and-see approach to business, so he’s not planning to expand his 2,400-head hog operation in Birtle, Man. just because Maple Leaf plans to turn Brandon into Canada’s hog mecca. At least not yet. “I’ve always thought in this business when everyone is walking, a person should run,” said Yaskiw […] Read more

Judging from the orange-yellow yield monitor map splayed out before Carberry, Man. potato grower Ken Carritt, he’s got a bumper crop coming in, at least along the lower half of his field. But what the map calls potatoes is nothing more than clumps of dirt. “It looks like we should have tremendous yields here but […] Read more

MINNEDOSA, Man. – Kurt Freitag likes to think of himself as a freedom fighter, not a border runner, and certainly not a criminal. The Margo, Sask. farmer is one of 12 producers facing criminal charges linked to protests over the Canadian Wheat Board held near the United States’ border more than two years ago. The […] Read more