(AOHVA.com)

Alberta lifts off-roading ban

Reading Time: 2 minutes Citing an outbreak of “wet and cool weather” across parts of the province, reducing the overall fire hazard, the Alberta government has lifted most of its restrictions on off-highway vehicle (OHV) use. The province lifted its OHV ban for “much of the province” except for its forest areas around Lac La Biche and Fort McMurray, […] Read more

Guide HR: Are you stressed?

Guide HR: Are you stressed?

Reading Time: 3 minutes We’ve studied stress in the workplace for years to try to mitigate it. Organizations like Forbes and Careercast have even published their Top 10 lists of the most stressful jobs. The careers on these lists include firefighters, police, airline pilots, and surgeons, which makes sense because people in these jobs after all are responsible for […] Read more


(Bayer.com)

Bayer offers to buy Monsanto in global ag chem shakeout

Reading Time: 3 minutes Reuters — German drugs and chemicals group Bayer AG made an unsolicited takeover offer for U.S. seeds company Monsanto, aiming to create the world’s biggest agricultural supplier and integrate pesticides and seeds markets. Monsanto disclosed the approach on Wednesday before Bayer confirmed its move, though neither gave the proposed terms. Sources said Bayer would pay […] Read more

(Darden.com)

Activists press Olive Garden on antibiotics, worker pay

Reading Time: 2 minutes Los Angeles | Reuters — Dozens of activist groups, emboldened by recent policy shifts at major U.S. restaurants, are demanding Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants change its food and labour practices. Their sweeping agenda, part of a campaign called “Good Food Now,” includes calls for the nation’s largest full-service restaurant operator to strengthen its antibiotics […] Read more


Average sea surface temperature in degrees Celsius over the Pacific Ocean for the week centred on May 4, 2016. Anomalies computed with respect to the 1981-2010 base period weekly means. (CPC.ncep.noaa.gov)

Forecasters see rising likelihood of La Nina in 2016

Reading Time: < 1 minute Reuters — A U.S. government weather forecaster on Thursday heightened its projections for the La Nina weather phenomenon to take place in the Northern Hemisphere later this year, on the heels of an El Nino likely to fade by early summer. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC), an agency of the National Weather Service, in its […] Read more

A member of Wildfire Management Alberta’s Wild Mountain Unit pulls hose through smouldering forest in the Parsons Creek area of Fort McMurray on May 5. (Chris Schwarz photo courtesy Government of Alberta via Flickr)

Glacier pledges support for wildfire disaster relief

Reading Time: 2 minutes Farm Business Communications’ parent company, Glacier Media, is donating $50,000 toward the Canadian Red Cross’ disaster relief efforts in the Fort McMurray area. The Vancouver company said its donation is also on behalf of individual Glacier business units, which will undertake their own awareness and fundraising efforts to help the city and its residents rebuild […] Read more


(MyAllegro.ca)

Agropur halts its diafiltered milk imports

Reading Time: 3 minutes Updated, May 11, 2016 — Canadian dairy processing co-operative Agropur says a three-month national program to subsidize use of Canadian dairy ingredients will allow it to “immediately” end its own imports of diafiltered milk. “We had pledged to stop importing diafiltered milk as soon as conditions allowed,” co-op president Serge Riendeau said Tuesday in a […] Read more

(AOHVA.com)

Farming uses exempt from Alberta off-roading ban

Reading Time: 2 minutes Alberta’s new provincewide ban on recreational use of off-highway vehicles (OHVs) in provincial parks and on other public lands won’t apply to their use in farm work. The provincial government announced the temporary OHV ban Friday as “another tool… to help prevent the spread of wildfires,” on top of Thursday’s provincewide fire ban and its […] Read more


(Government of Prince Edward Island via Flickr)

P.E.I. brings provincial vet job in-house

Reading Time: 2 minutes Relying until now on the services of the Atlantic Veterinary College, Prince Edward Island’s government has named a new in-house provincial veterinarian. The province on Tuesday named Dr. Carolyn Sanford to fill the post, in which she’ll oversee policy and regulatory issues related to animal health and welfare, including livestock and poultry as well as […] Read more

Ralph Eichler. (File photo by Dave Bedard)

Tories’ ex-ag critic named Manitoba ag minister

Reading Time: 2 minutes Manitoba’s incoming Progressive Conservative government has tapped one of its former critics on the agriculture and food file as its new minister of agriculture. Ralph Eichler, the MLA for the Interlake-area constituency of Lakeside since 2003, was sworn in Tuesday along with Premier Brian Pallister and 11 other cabinet ministers at Winnipeg’s Canadian Museum for […] Read more