Reading Time: 4 minutes Like a doctor delivering bad news to a patient, Martin Gooch gave it straight to the Ontario sheep sector: the sheep industry continues to be disjointed and inefficient, with a lack of benchmarks to define a successful farm. Like a good doctor, Gooch also delivered some optimism. “You could double production and have room for […] Read more
Benchmarking, grading, research needed to move lamb sector forward
Customer focus drives lamb processor partnerships with farmers
Reading Time: 3 minutes Wahab Zamani’s family knows what it wants in a lamb. And family members go to great lengths, partnering with sheep farmers, to get it. The Zamani family runs Simcoe Street Meat Packers and processes lamb in Kawartha Lakes for its retail stores in Toronto. They specialize in “truly halal products” he told the Ontario Sheep […] Read more
Big four topics remain constant in latest Real Dirt on Farming
Reading Time: 2 minutes The latest edition of the Real Dirt on Farming is out, and it continues to be a printed copy success story in a digital world. There are more than three million copies of the agriculture information resource in print and the demand doesn’t appear to be dropping. Farm & Food Care Ontario creates the publication […] Read more
Cellulosic sugars co-op offer improves, hosting baling demos
First demonstration takes place on Nov. 14 in Watford, Ont.
Reading Time: 2 minutes Farmers continue to sign up for an Ontario co-operative that will pay them for their corn stover and wheat straw. Brian Cofell, general manager of the Cellulosic Sugar Producers Co-operative (CSPC) says that the co-op has about 40 per cent of the acres committed that it needs by next fall, when it plans to harvest […] Read more
Big trends drive diverging high and low income food interests
Panel discussed the future of food and the widening disconnect between growers and consumers
Reading Time: 3 minutes There are larger issues driving food trends that should give farmers opportunities to open conversations with people in the food movement. The challenge is starting that conversation. Jayson Lusk, the head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University, told the George Morris AgriFood Policy Lecture on the future of food that influencers are […] Read more
VIDEO: Data needed to help Ontario lamb reach potential
Reading Time: < 1 minute Glacier FarmMedia’s John Greig speaks with Martin Gooch, who conducted a study for Ontario Sheep Farmers that looked at how farmers can get more local lamb to consumers.
Ontario’s sheep producers rebrand
Reading Time: 2 minutes The organization that represents sheep farmers in Ontario has a new name and look. The Ontario Sheep Marketing Agency (OSMA) is now known as the Ontario Sheep Farmers, effective at the Ontario Sheep Convention held Thursday and Friday at Alliston. OSMA’s board of directors made the change following a resolution at the 2015 annual meeting. […] Read more
Co-operative hopes to increase Ontario sugar beet acres
Industrial-use sugars could be used to create bio-based polymers
Reading Time: 3 minutes A plan to use Ontario-grown sugar beets for production of industrial-use sugars could grow Ontario acres of the crop by 30,000. The Ontario Innovative Sugarbeet Processors Co-operative (OISPC) was formed to investigate the possibility of supplying companies with sugars, being increasingly used to create bio-based polymers. The organization had BioIndustrial Innovation Canada (BIC) do a […] Read more
Greig: Federal tax backtracks aside, much of impact still unknown
Reading Time: 4 minutes The Canadian Association of Farm Advisors’ annual tax update showcased confusion and frustration at the federal government’s shifting plan to change how small business is taxed. “I was very, very offended by all of this,” said Kurt Oelschlagel, of BDO Canada, who was part of a panel on the government changes at the CAFA event, […] Read more
Dicamba label sufficient, Health Canada says
Reading Time: 2 minutes Health Canada will not be further regulating the use of dicamba herbicide sprayed on growing crops, as has happened in the U.S. The government agency that regulates pesticides issued a statement to Glacier FarmMedia reiterating its support for the current Canadian labels. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week increased restrictions on the use […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
