Reading Time: 4 minutes Early on the evening of April 13, 1970, Jack Swigert, pilot of Apollo 13’s command module, radioed the now famous phrase, “I believe we’ve had a problem here.” His words immediately set in motion the incredible teamwork needed to diagnose what had happened and to find a solution to a very serious situation. Since then, […] Read more
Join the fight for consumer trust
Every farmer should be in the habit of telling non-farmers to check out www.bestfoodfacts.org
How big is your market?
We must get better at understanding that the world’s commodity buyers have a growing range of options
Reading Time: 6 minutes How big is your world? Geographically, this is an easy question to answer with great precision. The diameter of the Earth at the equator is 12,756 km. Its circumference is 40,030 km along the equator, and 40,008 km through the poles. Thus the surface area of our planet is roughly 510 million sq. km. It’s […] Read more
‘Insurance’ spraying
A new study says most farmers can generate more profit by cutting back on crop protection. But wait… is it really that simple?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Today, we all recognize “recreational tillage” as a phrase we use to criticize farmers who haven’t been paying attention to how we’ve learned that we can put an end to a lot of excessive tillage, thereby reducing soil erosion, fuel and equipment costs, and manpower requirements. But now we need to ask: Is “recreational spraying” […] Read more
The next big disruption in agriculture
Sometimes a shock to the system can be a very good thing
Reading Time: 6 minutes In the business world, there’s a term to describe an event that completely changes an existing industry or market. It’s called a disruptor, and it changes how we think, work, and do business. It can be argued that agriculture has gone through three major disruptions in the last century: the mechanization of farming; the arrival […] Read more
Let’s get real on solar energy
Despite the skeptics, these two farms prove that solar energy is likely to be the foundation of our commercial farms for generations to come
Reading Time: 5 minutes In the last issue of Country Guide I made a case for solar power. I tried to show that economics of solar power are improving and that it is becoming a viable source of electricity. More importantly, I pointed out that society is demanding a switch away from fossil fuels, and that countries around the world […] Read more
So history repeats itself
Reading Time: 7 minutes Consider for a moment what Canadian agriculture would look like today if farmers had never made the switch from horse power to tractor power. It isn’t such an absurd idea if you understand why farmers here actually resisted mechanization when it first appeared roughly a century ago. An interesting read is the text of the […] Read more
Goodbye glyphosate?
A flood of cancer suits in the U.S. threatens to topple farmers’ most valuable herbicide
Reading Time: 6 minutes Last September I warned readers of a growing public backlash against glyphosate herbicide, and I wrote of the co-ordinated attack on glyphosate by Avaaz, an online activist community that is claiming credit for the refusal by European regulators to renew the licence for glyphosate, instead only granting an 18-month extension to the expiring licence. But […] Read more
Giving our business to India
If we won’t grow our own organic food, these small farmers are more than ready to step in. In fact, they already are
Reading Time: 6 minutes Once again my perception of our agricultural industry has been rocked by international travel. This time it was a visit to India in December that challenged my perception of organic production and marketing. First on my list was a cashew processor in Mangalore on India’s west coast. Canadians might be taken aback when they see […] Read more
Before you believe it
Because our vulnerability to misinformation is growing every day, the easy-to-use SMELL test needs to become like an app that we turn on every time we connect to the web, listen to a radio, or even talk to each other
Reading Time: 6 minutes If our food looks bad, tastes bad, or smells bad, we won’t eat it. So why don’t we treat information the same way? After all, we are told information is power. Information has value. Information is essential to modern society. So if information “smells” bad, shouldn’t we be wary of consuming it as well? Dr. […] Read more
Russia takes on the world
Millions of acres in Russia had been waiting for someone to farm them. Now they’re bursting with grain
Reading Time: 6 minutes For many Canadian grain growers, this year’s weather concerns, disease pressure, high input costs, and low crop prices made it seem like we’ve already been facing the perfect storm. However, there is an even bigger threat on the horizon — Russia. In the first week of October, while most Canadian growers were still busy with […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
