Tracy Tjaden

While southwestern Manitoba digs out from under a blizzard that dumped up to 80 centimetres of snow in two days, closed roads and downed power lines, farm weather specialists are focusing on the bright side. “If you want a good twist on it, this is the best news the area could have hoped for,” said […] Read more

When a blizzard storms into your community and dumps a whole winter’s worth of snow, you have to improvise, says Pat Ilotte. The Melita, Man. veterinarian took her own advice as she talked a cattle producer through a tricky twin birth in the midst of the worst snowstorm to hit the area in decades. “It’s […] Read more

Boissevain, Man. acquired a reputation as the town without food, after a record blizzard paralyzed the southwestern corner of the province and parts of eastern Saskatchewan last week. “We ran out of milk Friday and then potatoes and bread shortly after that,” said David Wowk, grocery manager at the Boissevain Co-op. The store was still […] Read more

More than 1,000 cattle near Virden, Man., are being checked for bovine tuberculosis in the latest outbreak to hit this province, and officials say testing could soon move into Saskatchewan and Alberta. One animal tested positive in a TB skin test that was part of an extensive trace-back program initiated after an outbreak a few […] Read more

The latest tuberculosis outbreak in Manitoba cattle has rallied support for a national identification program that would trace all cattle back to their original herds. Dealing with contagious disease outbreaks would be less work and more precise if cattle could be easily traced, said the federal veterinarian handling the case. “It is down and dirty […] Read more

Manitoba honey producers are scrambling to stay one step ahead of deadly parasitic mites that have been devastating colonies south of the border. The African varroa mite is becoming resistant to its main killer, Apistan, a United States bee expert told Manitoba beekeepers during the annual convention here two weeks ago. The chemical’s active ingredient, […] Read more

WINNIPEG – An expert on the history of farm movements in Canada says he can’t understand why producers are struggling to destroy the same institution their forerunners fought for two decades to create. “The forum of this agrarian protest is in some ways similar to protests of the past, but the content is so different,” […] Read more

A bitter court defeat for Dave Bryan spells victory for prairie farmers, says a group supporting the Canadian Wheat Board. “Farmers created the CWB and benefit from it,” said Wilf Harder, vice-chair of the board’s advisory committee. “All farmers should be relieved to know that a handful of lawbreakers don’t have the right to take […] Read more

WINNIPEG – For a moment last week it seemed the Canadian Wheat Board’s buy-back scheme was on trial as farmers took the stand to tell court how the program cuts into their bottom line. Glenn Pizzey, an Angusville, Man., farmer and miller, was one of three producers who took the stand for the defence in […] Read more

WINNIPEG – Farming has always been unpredictable, but Henry Kuhl never guessed he’d be driving from his Portage la Prairie farm every day for two weeks to sit in a jammed Winnipeg courtroom. But the free-market farmer said his trek to join other producers in supporting Dave Bryan’s constitutional challenge of the Canadian Wheat Board’s […] Read more