You’re walking through your local co-op grocery store in that browsing mode you sometimes fall into when you are waiting for the soil temperature to rise enough to go seeding. A smart-looking, brightly coloured label catches your eye on a bottle of orange juice. “This product does not contain strychnine,” it says, below a stylized […] Read more
Tag Archives editorial notebook
Canada toes the official line on China
China’s pain has been inflicted mainly upon the plain, or the Plains to be specific. The official story behind the ban of Canadian canola, and one cannot blame Canadian officials for sticking to their talking points, is that China claims to have found some potentially dangerous elements in Canadian canola exports and they are working […] Read more
Canada: constitutional confusion
Where you live in the country and where your personal politics reside has a lot to do with how supportive one might be of our current federal government. But, it would be very difficult to take issue with the success of the economy or the levels of support, both fiscally and spiritually, the Liberals have […] Read more
‘Fake news’ term not to be used lightly
I have, in recent weeks, come across the term “fake news” when people want to express their concern with an element in a story or column. This term has caught on and is being used as a tool to denigrate other people’s communication. It is often used inappropriately. The term was popularized by U.S. President […] Read more
Gov’t tries controlling the message
Agriculture Canada tried to impose media talking points on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for the public release of a study that examined glyphosate levels in Canadian food. Before the study’s release, CFIA provided the Grains Roundtable an overview of the study’s findings on April 10, 2017, according to an Agriculture Canada internal report obtained […] Read more
Your Producer journalists served you well
Most of you might not be aware that in this craft of agricultural journalism, a subset of the larger media industry, we have professional associations. One of the highlights of being a member of these groups is the annual competitions that allow us to see what the current standards in our business look like. As […] Read more
Our coverage of chemicals worthwhile
Discerning readers will notice that we’ve been writing a lot about farmers’ use of chemicals lately. There are four stories in this week’s Western Producer: one about the low thresholds used by Health Canada for neonicotinoids, one detailing how beekeepers in Western Canada are worried that a ban on neonics will result in farmers using […] Read more
‘Fake news’ tag harms useful info
I have, for the first time in my 25 years at The Western Producer, heard from farmer-readers that the professional press, including us, is “fake.” Lately, the term is being thrown around a lot. I was sitting in the sprayer, not so very long ago, going back and forth, as these things do when everything […] Read more
Trust vs. facts in debate over agriculture
We have often championed the virtue of good communications about agriculture to consumers, but Kevin Folta, a professor in the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida, has outlined a process to ensure the targets and the messages are effective. Folta, who spoke at the Global Institute for Food Security conference in Saskatoon last week, urged those […] Read more
Will supply management survive?
In April 2017, shortly after Canada closed the loophole on imports of ultra-filtered milk, Wisconsin dairy farmer Shane Sauer, told the CBC: “We don’t blame you (Canada)” for what was then a glut of product on the market. Sauer explained the explosion in production of ultra-filtered milk, used in milk byproducts such as cheese, came […] Read more
