The Canadian auto industry says it is not to blame for holding up a free trade deal with South Korea. Pressure has been increasing on the federal government to resume negotiations with the Asian country now that the United States has ratified a similar deal. The red meat sector is particularly anxious to see resumption […] Read more
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Auto sector denies blame for trade delay
Ottawa gives to food program in African schools
The federal government a nnounced its most recent commitment to food aid funding last week with a World Hunger 101 demonstration. As several dozen students from the Elmwood School for girls stood in as a Parliament Hill photo op prop, World Food Programme executive director Josette Sheeran held up a cup. It represented the amount […] Read more
Barley industry hopes to see acreage increase
The elimination of single desk marketing should increase barley acreage in Western Canada, says the Malting Industry Association of Canada. President Phil de Kemp said proposed changes to the Canadian Wheat Board will allow malting companies to offer definitive price signals, something producers need when making annual cropping decisions. “The industry is going to be […] Read more
Stars align for fall harvest
Cool, wet weather, a bumper crop and plenty of acres prompted the Shady Lane Hutterite colony to ask neighbours and other colonies to help finish its northern Alberta harvest. Fourteen combines descended on the last few fields in an attempt to complete the harvest before the snow fell. The colony was concerned by reports of […] Read more
Raw milk ban sparks hunger strike
An Ontario man is now more than a month into a hunger strike he started Sept. 29 to protest a ban on raw cow milk for human consumption. Michael Schmidt said he has taken the drastic step in an attempt to bring further publicity to his long-standing battle with the federal government over the right […] Read more
Alta. maltster expands
Rahr Malting plans to spend more than $6 million to expand barley storage capacity at its malting plant in Alix, Alta. Bob Sutton, vice-president of sales and logistics, said the expansion will include the construction of three 9,000 tonne storage bins. Construction will begin immediately and should be complete by next summer. The bins will […] Read more
Take action against potato late blight
Potato growers should check their seed potatoes to ensure they don’t carry late blight into next season. Robert Spencer, a commercial horticulture specialist with Alberta Agriculture, said late blight can survive on seed potatoes even though plant foliage is frozen and dead. Planting tubers infected with blight can result in late blight infection next year, […] Read more
Gun registry end pleases MP
He is not the sponsor of the government bill to end the long gun registry and doesn’t have his name on it but Saskatchewan MP Garry Breitkreuz’s fingerprints are all over it. In many way, the veteran Yorkton- Melville MP is the godfather of Bill C-19 to scrap the registry and then destroy its 16 […] Read more
Litigants mum on legal costs
It’s shaping up to be a bumper harvest for legal firms involved in Canadian Wheat Board lawsuits. The number of farmer-funded lawsuits stemming from proposed legislative changes to the CWB increased by two last week. On Oct. 26, wheat board chair Allen Oberg announced that the wheat board would launch a lawsuit against the federal […] Read more
Technology makes farming profitable, feeds poor
Watch for a special report about the coexistence of GM crops with conventional and organic crops in the coming weeks in the pages of The Western Producer. The solution to the world hunger crisis is not growing more crops, says the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization s. “The main cause of hunger in the […] Read more
