File photo of Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau speaking to media in Winnipeg in March 2019. (Dave Bedard photo)

Canada not benefiting from CETA, Bibeau says

Ex-premiers write to Ottawa with critique of EU's continued trade barriers

Reading Time: 2 minutes Canada is not benefiting from the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union (EU), federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau grants. Expected to spur $1.5 billion in new agri-food exports, the free trade deal has fallen short of those targets since its implementation in 2017. In a letter Monday to Prime Minister Justin […] Read more

Abelman’s Salt Spring farm is hardly a grain and oilseed powerhouse. But consumers line up to buy from him.

Food in its place

Canada’s top urban-agriculture advocate admits that mostly it isn’t farming. So why does he keep pushing?

Reading Time: 6 minutes “I took it as a compliment,” says Michael Ableman as he recalls being called a “food terrorist” by cooking celebrity Julia Childs. It was a charge she made after he spoke to a group of culinary professionals with a bag of groceries at his side. One by one, he took out the groceries and told […] Read more


Wine grapes are seen hanging with remnants of smoke and ash at Hanson Vineyards at Woodburn, Oregon, about 45 km south of Portland, on Sept. 17, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)

Charred U.S. west’s ‘wet ashtray’ wine grapes left to birds

Reading Time: 3 minutes Reuters — Heavy ground smoke clouded Hanson Vineyards in Oregon’s picturesque Willamette Valley for more than a week following a Labour Day windstorm that kicked up wildfires across the western United States. Jason Hanson expects his crews may only harvest five tons of grapes, including his Chardonnay and Gamay varieties, down from the 25 to […] Read more

Charles Baron and partners brought FBN to Canada in 2017, buying Saskatchewan-based Yorkton Distributors. (FBN video screengrab via YouTube)

FBN cuts yearly membership fee to zero

Ag e-commerce firm offers free accounts to farmers

Reading Time: 2 minutes E-marketplace Farmers Business Network (FBN) has disposed of the annual membership fee that allowed members access to its various buying groups and services. California-based FBN, which has operated in the U.S. since 2014 and expanded to Canada in 2017, announced Tuesday (Sept. 15) its farmer members may now have “access to a select range of […] Read more


Gerald Grand, a staff member at Agolin, a Swiss maker of feed additives based on botanical compounds, works on a mixture of components at Biere, Switzerland on Sept. 26, 2018. (Photo: Reuters/Denis Balibouse)

More food companies aim to wrangle cattle emissions

Nestle, Barry Callebaut trying out feed additives

Reading Time: 3 minutes Winnipeg | Reuters — Looking to improve milk production, California farmer John Verwey turned to a Swiss-made feed additive designed to make a cow more efficient while reducing methane emissions from cattle burps. The more a cow belches, the more it spends energy that could be used instead for milk production, Verwey reasoned. So two […] Read more



(Outdoorfarmshow.com)

Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show looks to lock in land base

GFM plans to buy research land for eastern Discovery Farm

Reading Time: 2 minutes As Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show goes digital this week, its operator is preparing to secure its real-world footprint in southern Ontario and put that real estate to year-round work. Glacier FarmMedia and the Ontario government on Tuesday announced their intent to work toward a land deal with the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario (ARIO), which […] Read more

Ross Wetmore. (Video screengrab from NBPCCaucus via YouTube)

New Brunswick returns ag minister, ag critic in election

Liberals' former ag minister among casualties

Reading Time: 2 minutes New Brunswick’s incumbent agriculture minister and opposition ag critic are among those returning to the legislative assembly as the provincial Tories locked in a governing majority. As of 9 p.m. CT Monday, incumbent Premier Blaine Higgs’ Progressive Conservatives, who went into the vote with a 22-seat minority government, were elected in 27 of 49 ridings. […] Read more


"You the farmer have something to offer that the big grocery stores cannot duplicate,” says Charlotte Lepp, here with husband Rob.

Owning the supply chain

B.C.’s third-largest hog producers Charlotte and Bob Lepp thought they’d test the waters with a small step into retail. It’s led to incredible learning, and growth

Reading Time: 8 minutes It isn’t exactly unusual. Time and again, all across the country, and especially now with COVID-19, farmers have looked at what they produce and thought, “If only I could cut some distributors and wholesalers out of the chain, I’d get to keep a lot more of what the end-user actually pays for the food I […] Read more

Nexus’ prototype R2-Weed2 system. (Nexus Robotics photo by Teric Greenan)

Feds back autonomous weederbot’s Halifax manufacturer

ACOA funding to support field-level trials

Reading Time: 2 minutes The federal government’s economic development agency for Atlantic Canada is putting up money for a new round of on-the-ground tests of a self-guided field-weeding robot. Halifax MP Andy Fillmore on Wednesday announced a $550,000 repayable investment from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s (ACOA) Regional Economic Growth Through Innovation program for Halifax-based Nexus Robotics. Nexus, the […] Read more