Reading Time: 2 minutes Crop protection companies selling glyphosate have two years to make minor changes to parts of their product labels, as the 43-year-old herbicide formally clears Health Canada’s re-evaluation process. The re-evaluation, launched in late 2009 in a standard federal practice for registered pesticides in Canada, has ruled that products containing glyphosate — when used following the […] Read more
Glyphosate clears Health Canada re-evaluation
Alberta recruits new board for AFSC
Reading Time: 2 minutes Alberta’s provincial government has named a new board of directors to its farm financing and crop insurance agency, to replace the board it fired last year. Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier on Thursday announced the appointment of a new eight-member board for the provincial Agriculture Financial Services Corp., (AFSC), which has been handled by an interim […] Read more
Alberta pledges ‘streamlined’ crop insurance inspections
Reading Time: 2 minutes Alberta’s provincial crop insurance agency will “streamline” its inspection procedures to better deal with unharvested acres from last fall, the government said Wednesday. The announcement from provincial Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier follows a conference call with officials from Agriculture Financial Services Corp. (AFSC) and from the province’s wheat, barley, canola and pulse grower commissions. “Balancing […] Read more
Operation Pollinator to create friendly spaces for bees and other pollinators on the Prairies
Reading Time: < 1 minute Syngenta Canada and the Soil Conversation Council of Canada have signed on to a multi-year partnership to promote the dedicated spaces for pollinators on the Prairies. Under the program, farmers can sign up to establish Operation Pollinator sites on their farms. In exchange for converting one to two acres of lower productivity land, the farmer […] Read more
Grain Growers applauds move to accelerate CGC outward inspection fee reduction
Reading Time: < 1 minute Grain Growers of Canada says it is pleased to see an April 22 Canada Gazette notice that proposes an early reduction of Canadian Grain Commission outward inspection fees as of August 1, 2017. The accelerated reduction is ahead of the original schedule of new user fees which would have started April 1, 2018. “This move […] Read more
OPR threatened, organic industry officials say
Reading Time: 2 minutes The organic industry is mounting a protest against pending changes for its Organic Products Regulation (OPR) that it says has potential to “undo the entire Canadian organic supply chain.” In 2012, the passage of the Safe Foods for Canadians Act resulted in a number of regulations, including the OPR, being combined into a single document […] Read more
CFIA approves camelina oil for use in Atlantic salmon feed
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has approved mechanically-extracted camelina oil as a feed ingredient for farmed salmon and trout, Genome Atlantic says in a release. That paves the way for the oilseed to serve as a new rotation option for Maritime potato farmers. Camelina sativa, or false flax, is a hardy oilseed plant that […] Read more
New lawsuit claims CWB kept $145 million of farmers’ money
Reading Time: 2 minutes Brookdale Manitoba farmer Andrew Dennis has filed a statement of claim in the Manitoba Court of Queens Bench claiming the now-defunct Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) withheld money owed to farmers to help finance its transition to a private grain company. Dennis is seeking certification of a class action lawsuit on behalf of all farmers who […] Read more
Alberta farm groups want provincial action on unharvested crops
Reading Time: 2 minutes A coalition of Alberta farm groups calling itself “Team Alberta” is meeting with the province’s agriculture minister and representatives from the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) on Wednesday seeking immediate action regarding approximately one million unharvested acres still sitting in farmers’ fields. They are recommending that farmers in the hardest hit areas of Alberta be […] Read more
Keystone Agricultural Producers defends cash ticket deferrals
Reading Time: < 1 minute Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers has joined other farm groups in calling on the federal government to keep a regulation that allows farmers to defer grain sales into the following year for tax purposes. The government announced in its recent budget that it is considering eliminating grain ticket deferrals because it is a left over from […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
