Reading Time: 3 minutes In the final instalment of our Making the Future series Country Guide spoke with Beth Martel from St. Leon, Man. (Click here to read part one, part two, part three and part four.) Beth Martel grew up in Wales, U.K., and moved with her family to Manitoba in 2001, where they purchased a mixed cattle […] Read more
Manitoba agronomist and farmer reflects on career in agriculture
Summer Series 'Making the Future': Exploring the perspectives and experiences of young up-and-comers in various sectors of Canada’s agriculture industry
‘It’s all in your head’
Futurology: It takes brain power to farm. It always has, but nothing like the ‘mental machinery’ that will transform agriculture in the next 20 years
Reading Time: 3 minutes This is the second in a series of articles about the future of agriculture. The series isn’t an attempt to forecast next month’s canola prices, but a look at what Canadian agriculture might look like in the long term, 20 years from now. In the first article in the series, we looked at foresight, a […] Read more
Are agrologist salaries on the money?
Salary survey also examined if a gender pay gap exists in agriculture
Reading Time: 6 minutes This past winter the Saskatchewan Institute of Agrologists (SIA) released a salary survey that pegs the overall average salary of Saskatchewan agrologists (not including bonus) at $84,629. For the first time in agriculture, though, this survey separated out pay by gender, and showed a gap of up to $20,000 in certain age categories. The numbers […] Read more
Endangered species versus drainage
Farmers, contractors and municipalities are trying to cope with Ontario’s new Endangered Species Act
Reading Time: 7 minutes From time to time, farmers can find themselves caught by a development or issue that sneaks up on them. At first, it can seem trivial, even ridiculous. But it’s like ignoring a train in the distance: before you know it, it’s speeding up on you and it’s too late to react. Changes to Ontario’s Endangered […] Read more
More than cutworms “bugged” corn crops in 2017
Pests in 2017 have been a more complicated picture, based largely on a mixed bag of weather-related challenges
Reading Time: 5 minutes Coming out of winter and looking ahead to any growing season, it’s impossible to predict which insect pests will be the biggest challenge for growers. In 2001, for instance, soybean aphids first became a widespread issue for Ontario farmers, and the fear took such firm root that we’d have to deal with them in 2002 […] Read more
The 5 per cent solution of farm management
On the Hebert farm, the momentum for growth is internal
Reading Time: 7 minutes In Saskatoon in mid-January, Kristjan Hebert was at the podium of a banquet room, telling the crowd of farmers something that farmers have said all through the generations. Hebert and his family want to build a legacy farm. “And our definition of legacy is extremely simple,” Hebert continued. “We want to leave the land and […] Read more
Big data in Canadian agriculture? Not yet
Precision agriculture proponents are convinced that the technology will pay off, but that data collection needs to be standardized and not require farmers’ time during the busy seasons
Reading Time: 6 minutes Watching over the fencerow to see how the neighbour is growing that nice crop is a long tradition in farming. Are we heading into an era where you can look over the digital fencerow to look at the neighbour’s data on nutrient placement, seeding rates, variety selection and combine speed? Increasingly each piece of equipment […] Read more
So you’ve got a drone — now what?
Until drone technology gets a lot more user friendly, farmers may want to leave it in the hands of agronomists
Reading Time: 5 minutes Chances are, you’ve got a drone — maybe it’s a Parrot AR you picked up for $100 at Walmart. Possibly it’s a $1,500 DJI Phantom 3 that takes great aerial photos. Or maybe you’re one of the few western Canadian producers who’s purchased an NDVI-capable drone that takes orthomosaic images that can be layered in […] Read more
Do your homework before jumping into growing soybeans head first
Soybean Guide: Soybean varieties and the business case for growing them have been improving, but Saskatchewan isn’t Iowa yet. Even seed salesmen recommend going slowly at first
Reading Time: 5 minutes Soybeans have expanded well beyond their traditional base in Manitoba’s Red River Valley, so growers even farther west into Saskatchewan are giving them a close look. But they might want to wade through the hype before making any big decisions, says one agronomist who’s been working with new growers. Dieter Schwarz, a market development agronomist […] Read more
Livestock biosecurity strategies come to canola
Canola and soybean farmers are just beginning to see the wave of biosecurity that could sweep them the way it swept Canada’s hog and poultry sectors
Reading Time: 6 minutes When Manitoba agronomist Terry Buss goes out on a call from the Beausejour office, he takes a big trunk full of plastic boot covers in the back of the pickup. There are disinfectants in the trunk too, and other cleaning supplies as well, and he uses them all. Buss has adopted a brand new form […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
