(Oneilcarlier.albertandp.ca)

Alberta ag minister Carlier downed in UCP win

Reading Time: 2 minutes Alberta’s incumbent agriculture minister was among the casualties as Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party defeated Rachel Notley’s New Democrats in Tuesday night’s provincial election. Oneil Carlier, the provincial NDP government’s minister of agriculture and forestry since May 2015 and deputy government house leader since February 2016, was unseated in his riding of Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland […] Read more

A file photo of Brazil’s Mata Atlantica (Atlantic rainforest). (FG Trade/E+/Getty Images)

Brazil ag minister eyes indigenous land for commercial farming

Reading Time: 2 minutes Brasilia | Reuters — Brazil should open indigenous land to commercial farming, Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias said on Friday, while also seeking to soften many of President Jair Bolsonaro’s controversial stances on native people and the environment. Farmers form a key base of support for right-wing firebrand Bolsonaro who since taking office Jan. 1 […] Read more


Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart, shown here at Ag in Motion in 2015, plans to leave the post following a recent cancer diagnosis. (File photo by Lisa Guenther)

Saskatchewan ag minister to exit cabinet

Reading Time: < 1 minute Saskatchewan’s premier expects to name a new minister of agriculture within days, as the incumbent minister steps aside to focus on cancer treatments. Lyle Stewart announced Thursday he will remain as ag minister until Premier Scott Moe names a new minister, a decision to be announced sometime this week. “I was recently diagnosed with colorectal […] Read more

G20 agriculture ministers on July 28, 2018 at La Rural in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (G20.org)

G20 ag ministers slam protectionism, pledge WTO reforms

Reading Time: 2 minutes Buenos Aires | Reuters — Agriculture ministers from the G20 countries criticized protectionism in a joint statement on Saturday, and vowed to reform World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, but did not detail what steps they would take to improve the food trade system. In the statement, they said they were “concerned about the increasing use […] Read more


(JeffLeal.onmpp.ca)

Sector growth to occupy Ontario ag minister in 2018

Reading Time: 3 minutes Ontario’s Liberals will have their agriculture standard-bearer back for the 2018 election. Jeff Leal, Ontario’s minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs, is staying in politics, running for his fifth term as a member of the provincial legislature in the Peterborough riding. Leal, who as a resident of Peterborough is about as rural as any […] Read more

Gerry Ritz won’t be coming back to the House of Commons in September. (Manitoba Co-operator photo by Shannon VanRaes)

Ex-agriculture minister Gerry Ritz quits Commons

Reading Time: 2 minutes Gerry Ritz, the federal minister for agriculture and agri-food for nine years in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, is done with federal politics. The MP for the western Saskatchewan riding of Battlefords-Lloydminster since 1997, Ritz announced via Twitter Thursday morning that he “will not be returning to my seat in the House of Commons this fall.” […] Read more


Lana Popham. (B.C. NDP via Flickr, license at Creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

B.C. NDP’s ag critic named ag minister

Reading Time: 2 minutes The agriculture critic for British Columbia’s opposition New Democrats will be the minister of agriculture as the party takes the governing reins. Lana Popham, the MLA for the Vancouver Island riding of Saanich South, was named Tuesday as ag minister in Premier John Horgan’s cabinet. Horgan took over as premier after Christy Clark’s Liberals, who […] Read more

(Government of Alberta via Flickr)

Former Alberta agriculture minister LeRoy Fjordbotten, 78

Reading Time: < 1 minute Memorial services will be held Sunday in Claresholm, Alta. for LeRoy Fjordbotten, the farmer and consultant who served as Alberta’s agriculture minister from 1982 to 1986. Fjordbotten, who died June 8, farmed northeast of Granum, about 60 km northwest of Lethbridge, and was a member of Flying Farmers of Alberta before running for the Progressive […] Read more


U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, Canadian Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay and Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture Jose Calzada (l-r) speak at the Port of Savannah, Ga. on June 20. (Stephen B. Morton photo courtesy Georgia Ports Authority)

NAFTA agriculture ministers see ‘few’ differences over trade

Reading Time: < 1 minute Garden City, Ga. | Reuters — The U.S., Canada and Mexico have “relatively few” differences on agricultural trade, agriculture ministers from the three countries said in a joint statement after meeting Tuesday to discuss the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. However, some “irritants” are present for each country in the runup to […] Read more

Quebec Agriculture Minister Pierre Paradis. (MAPAQ.gouv.qc.ca)

No charges against Quebec’s ex-ag minister

Reading Time: < 1 minute Quebec’s director of prosecutions has decided not to pursue criminal charges against the province’s fired agriculture minister over allegations of “acts of a sexual character.” The province’s director of criminal and penal prosecutions (DPCP) announced in a release Monday that the office was “not reasonably convinced” culpability could be proven against the provincial member for […] Read more