Reading Time: 5 minutes The science is clear. “If you look at Western Canada and you look at a four-year crop rotation that starts anchored by a pulse crop at the front end, I believe that’s one of the most sustainable farming systems in the world,” says John Oliver, president of Maple Leaf Bio-Concepts. Many of the loudest, harshest […] Read more
Win the right battle – for the sake of food
Not only is the food we eat bad for us, but the practices that produced it are unsound too. Or so goes the message that too many consumers get too often from our mainstream media
Is momentum being lost for sustainable agriculture?
Farmers have made great strides toward sustainability, but there are fears that we’re starting to slip back
Reading Time: 5 minutes Have we become more sustainable?” asks Martin Entz, professor of natural systems agriculture at the University of Manitoba. “In some ways we’ve moved forward a long way, but there’s also some things we’ve moved backwards on.” Farmers have scored big wins in erosion control, the rate of organic matter loss, water use efficiency, weed management, […] Read more
Could containers be the answer to the West’s grain shipping woes?
A containerized grain supply chain would enhance competition, says University of Manitoba economist
Reading Time: 5 minutes Ottawa has long been in the business of trying to fix the problem of transporting Prairie grain to the west coast by rail. Yet the issues don’t get solved. “None of the policies introduced by Raitt or Ritz did anything to deal with the surge,” University of Manitoba’s Barry Prentice says. “Worse, they have done […] Read more
Plenty of blame to go around for grain shipping debacle
A year into the great grain fiasco, it’s no longer only about the railways
Reading Time: 6 minutes UPDATED, June 21, 2015: The 2013 harvest should have been a time of wild celebration. Prairie farmers had produced a bin-busting crop with a record-smashing 76 million tonnes, and with good crop prices, the entire West should have struck up the music and started to dance. Instead, logistics turned the dream into a nightmare, and […] Read more
Beneficial insects can fight in your corner, if you let them
A new field guide will be available both electronically and in print in time for you to use through the upcoming crop year
Reading Time: 6 minutes Farmers are only hurting themselves if they aren’t giving a helping hand to the natural allies in the fields that can assist them in controlling pests. Nature not only provides, as the old proverb says. Research proves that it also pays. In fact, new research even tells us how much it pays. Natural pest suppression […] Read more
Crop outlook 2015
Country Guide attended Wild Oats GrainWorld to hear what the industry said about grain and oilseed crops
Reading Time: 11 minutes With all the day-by-day and minute-by-minute noise that rocks today’s grain and oilseed trading, it can seem impossible to pick out the vital messages that the market is actually sending. Country Guide sent veteran ag reporter Richard Kamchen to Wild Oats GrainWorld in Winnipeg this winter to listen for the home truths about 2015’s grain […] Read more
Herbicide resistance isn’t getting any better
Herbicide resistance is almost guaranteed to keep getting worse. But you might be able to keep it manageable on your farm
Reading Time: 6 minutes Wild oats have reigned as Western Canada’s worst weed for about 40 years, and multiple herbicide resistance and farmers’ reluctance to alter their practices may ensure the title doesn’t change hands in the foreseeable future. “Based on our surveys, we estimate that over half of the cultivated land in the Prairies — about 36 million […] Read more
Stacked tolerance traits taking on herbicide-resistant weeds
Next-generation herbicide stacks are on their way to help fight not only weed resistance, but more weed species too
Reading Time: 8 minutes A number of next-generation herbicide-tolerant crops are in the pipeline for soybean and canola growers, but the offerings won’t include any magic bullets. Instead, what we’re likely to see first are more stacked tolerance traits. It’s because life science companies have their own kind of stacking to deal with. Their new traits are lined up, […] Read more
Looking for a safe bet in an era of crop price predictions
Grain and oilseed prices are down across the board, but there soon could be some opportunities
Reading Time: 5 minutes Grain farmers across Canada are facing a stagflation-like, worst-of-both-worlds scenario heading into the fall of 2014 thanks to a badly timed combination of projected lower yields and weak prices. When Canadians were hit by stagflation in the late 1970s, they got both barrels with stagnant economic growth and high inflation rates. This crop year, farmers are the […] Read more
Sustainability on the hoof
Across Canada, livestock must be part of a healthy agriculture
Reading Time: 3 minutes Forages and livestock can not only help you manage your soil for sustainability, they can also help you manage the evolution of herbicide-resistant weeds, says Martin Entz, professor of natural systems agriculture at the University of Manitoba. No-till farming has come a long way and has brought a lot of change to agriculture. But there’s […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
