Sustainability on the hoof

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

Conservation tillage is supposed to save soil, preserve yields and increase farm profitability. So why has the global move toward no till stalled so far short of the goal?

Increase in conservation agriculture ‘has to happen’

Only 7.1 per cent of the world’s arable land is farmed no till, and there are many reasons to adopt practices

Reading Time: 4 minutes If conservation agriculture is so great, why aren’t more farmers doing it? It’s a question that surfaced repeatedly during panel discussions at the recent World Congress on Conservation Agriculture in Winnipeg. Presenters from countries spanning the alphabet from Australia to Zambia left little doubt that conservation agriculture is a worldwide movement. Zero tillage is growing […] Read more


combine in field

Soil plays a major role in precision sustainability

Precision technology is teaching us some surprising eye-openers

Reading Time: 2 minutes Seriously? Can it really be better to till up and down some slopes instead of across? That’s one of the conclusions from early work with precision agriculture in Australia, where the technology is proving a boon for field crop productivity. It turns out that older technologies have blinded us to much of what’s really going […] Read more

new wheat seedlings

Humanity must stop treating soil like dirt

Why we care: Farmers around the world know soil is the stuff of life

Reading Time: 6 minutes Winnipeg was the site of 2014’s World Congress on Conservation Agriculture where farmers, agronomists, researchers and policy-makers from 33 countries around the globe met to discuss the world’s soil, as the stories in the special ‘Sustainability’ section in the July 2014 issue of Country Guide reveal. In fact, Country Guide, and our farm readers, feel so strongly about […] Read more


Cover crops can be key to healthy soil

Starting out small and being flexible will improve your chance of success

Reading Time: < 1 minute The popularity of cover crops is growing and some farmers are discovering benefits of moisture retention, improved filtration, and increased organic matter for their efforts. But choosing the right cover crop and having the proper knowledge before you begin is important. We met with crop consultant Dan Towery at the recent OSCIA to hear his thoughts […] Read more

Consumers play major role in sustainable agriculture

Production efficiencies help the environment

Reading Time: < 1 minute Country Guide had the opportunity to speak with Terry Daynard, an associate at Agri-Food Technologies at the recent AGM of the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA). He describes how public interest and activism for sustainable agriculture and the environment have moved modern companies toward sustainability. Super-chain stores also play a major role, as the […] Read more


Farmer standing in corn field.

Corn losing the acreage battle

Across the east, farmers like Elliot Lowry are dropping corn from their 2014 plans

Reading Time: 5 minutes Be prepared to see noticeably less corn in Canada’s cornbelt next year as farmers in southern Ontario and Quebec continue to switch acres to soybeans. The 2011 federal Census of Agriculture documented a 33 per cent jump since 2006 in the number of acres farmers are planting to soybeans, and it isn’t at all hard […] Read more

Canola contracts on the ICE Futures Canada platform posted record daily trade volumes (51,805 contracts traded) on Dec. 4, 2013, beating the previous record (49,165) from June 9, 2010. (Dave Bedard photo)

Not dead yet

Reading Time: 5 minutes Speculation about the impending death of Winnipeg canola futures misses the mark, industry watchers say Winnipeg’s canola futures have plenty of life left, say experts who refute any predictions about the inevitability of a death watch for the market. A year ago, record open interest was being set in the canola market, but when June 2013 […] Read more


A cultured phytophthora sojae sample (on the white pad) is inserted into a naturally resistant soybean seedling. Scott Bauer photo courtesy ARS/USDA.

Attack on seedling diseases

Researchers are gaining the upper hand in a battle that is much more complex than anyone expected

Reading Time: 6 minutes When it comes to production problems in soybeans, growers have grown used to hearing that with soybean cyst nematode, once you’ve got it, it’s in your fields to stay. Only diverse rotations and SCN-resistant varieties can reduce the damage to future crops. But nematodes are far from the only threat. Surveys in the U.S. have […] Read more

Time to grow

With precision agriculture finally ready to fulfil its promise, should you look to expand even faster? The answer depends on whether you have the time

Reading Time: 5 minutes The predictions came fast and furious when relatively accurate GPS units first made their debut outside the military a decade ago. In essentially the twinkling of an eye, we were told, precision agriculture would begin slashing our use of inputs and we would apply only what we needed where it was needed, with medical precision. […] Read more