An increased focus on climate change is significantly altering how ag research is conducted. | Getty Images

Research dilemma: crops or climate?

WINNIPEG — In November 2021, Canada’s agriculture minister and provincial agriculture ministers made an announcement that, at the time, seemed like just one more in the usual stream of announcements. It wasn’t. Other stories in this Special Report: The leaders were in Guelph, Ont., to finalize negotiations for the next federal-provincial funding partnership to support […] Read more

Digital agriculture is the use of devices such as computers, sensors and satellites to gather, process and analyze spatial and temporal information. | Screencap via deere.com

What will it take to realize the promise of digital agriculture?

Canada is positioned to lead in this technology sector but is hampered by scattered funding and information sources

Digital agriculture can help Canada’s farms manage the increasing pressure to produce food, minimize environmental impact and provide a living for farmers, but only if scattered research dollars and talent are brought together. “We need to do a lot better if we want a food system that is more productive, that is more sustainable, and […] Read more

U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack recently said that while economies of scale are needed to cope with the thin margins in farming, he thinks the situation has become too lopsided.  |  Reuters/ Leah Millis photo

Focus on productivity has high cost: Vilsack

U.S. agriculture secretary says the drive to increase production has taken a heavy toll on the country’s rural communities

SASKATOON — The pendulum has swung too far in favour of production agriculture, says the U.S. agriculture secretary. Tom Vilsack said the landscape of U.S. agriculture forever changed in the 1970s when the federal government decided it no longer wanted to manage supply and instead let the market dictate what would happen. Related stories: Grain […] Read more


A lack of trust among producers adds turbulence to software companies’ efforts to integrate a myriad of farm-based data. | Getty Images

Cloud-based farm technology faces stormy skies

Cloud-based software developers face a dilemma when trying to crack the agricultural market. On one hand, integrating all the on-farm data they can gather with government systems, equipment manufacturers and other software companies could help farmers manage productivity and make decisions easier. On the other hand, farmers worry that those same developers might turn the […] Read more

New research from University of British Columbia agricultural economist James Vercammen argues that there is no underlying productivity growth trend at all, but instead revolutionary technological innovations that take years to be adopted and then unpredictably appear. | Getty Images

Ag productivity growth may not be predictable

WINNIPEG — Many economists fear that agricultural productivity has slumped into a long-term trend of disappointingly slow growth, while others think recent weather shocks have temporarily disguised a better growth trend that will reappear once better growing conditions return. Still others warn that decades of reduced agricultural research growth will continue for years unless funding […] Read more


A large, tracked tractor pulls an air seeder rig near the highway on the Discovery Farm near Langham, Sask.

New members bolster national network of smart farms

Lethbridge College and Innovation Farms Powered by AgExpert have joined an initiative to promote smart farming


The initiative aims to improve productivity and sustainability of farmers and ranchers by encouraging greater technology use. The network was partly launched in 2021 by the Olds College Smart Farm and the Lakeland College Student-Managed Farm in Vermilion, Alta.


Soil is blown into piles near a fence line, there is some snow on top.

Soil erosion causes problems on irrigated land

Five-year research project will test practices that improve crop production systems in areas such as southern Alberta

Soil erosion is affecting some of the most expensive land in the province, with farmers permanently losing soil in a day that took hundreds, if not thousands, of years to build up, said Ken Coles, executive director of Farming Smarter.