Food security Archives - Country Guide

File photo of Ontario cropland from the air. (IMNATURE/iStock/Getty Images)

Federal NDP introduces soil health bill

Proposal calls for a National Soil Health Advocate

By D.C. Fraser May 1, 2021

Reading Time: 2 minutes The federal New Democrats propose to set up a plan they say could help build up Canadian agriculture from the ground down. The NDP’s agriculture critic, British Columbia MP Alistair MacGregor, on Monday introduced a private member’s bill in the Commons to create a national soil health strategy for Canada. The strategy as proposed in […] Read more

The Black Farmers Collective pioneers new ways to connect communities with food production.

News

Hungry in Canada

Shocking numbers of Canadians are getting left hungry and malnourished

By Helen Lammers-Helps April 27, 2021

Reading Time: 5 minutes Even before the pandemic, the number of people in Canada who didn’t have enough to eat was at alarming levels. Statistics Canada’s Community Health Survey reported in 2017-18 that 4.4 million people in Canada, including 1.2 million children under the age of 18, were unable to access enough food to eat. The pandemic has exacerbated […] Read more

A decade ago, forecasters said global food demand would double. Now they expect half that much. But, says AFT’s Mitch Hunter, the good news is that it may be sustainable.

Crops, Guide Business

Feeding the farmer

As global population estimates get scaled back, our sense of priorities is beginning to change

By Angela Lovell March 22, 2021

Reading Time: 6 minutes Will the world’s farmers really have to double their food production by 2050? Media reports say it’s true, and many farm sources seem to repeat it almost daily. But not all experts agree. Dr. Mitch Hunter, research director at American Farmland Trust, has analyzed the newest figures and suggests that food demand will likely increase […] Read more

Beth Bechdol, deputy director-general for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), speaks on a video conference call marking World Pulses Day. (Photo courtesy FAO via Flickr, copyright FAO)

Crops, Pulses

Pulse weekly outlook: World Pulses Day celebrated

By MarketsFarm Team February 17, 2021

Reading Time: 2 minutes MarketsFarm — The United Nations celebrated the annual World Pulses Day on Feb. 10, highlighting the contribution of pulse crops to world agriculture and nutrition. “Pulses are more than just nutritious seeds – they also contribute to achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development,” the UN said in a release. “They play […] Read more

Markets, Reuters

Argentina suspends corn exports to ensure domestic food supplies

By Maximilian Heath December 30, 2020

Reading Time: < 1 minute Buenos Aires | Reuters – Argentina will suspend corn exports until March 1, the agriculture ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that announced the surprise move as part of the government’s effort to ensure ample domestic food supplies. “This decision is based on the need to ensure the supply of grain for the sectors […] Read more

Features, Guide Business

Toronto’s golden Greenbelt

Now that the world’s largest greenbelt has outlasted the political controversies, could you farm there?

By Anna Hobbs September 29, 2020

Reading Time: 8 minutes When Ontario’s Greenbelt turned 15 this past February, all four of Ontario’s political parties gathered at Queen’s Park to celebrate. According to Michael Young, communications advisor for the Greenbelt Foundation, the event was “a positive and convivial occasion, with a sense that we were all coming together with the shared belief that the Greenbelt must […] Read more

Abelman’s Salt Spring farm is hardly a grain and oilseed powerhouse. But consumers line up to buy from him.

Guide Business, Marketing

Food in its place

Canada’s top urban-agriculture advocate admits that mostly it isn’t farming. So why does he keep pushing?

By Steven Biggs September 24, 2020

Reading Time: 6 minutes “I took it as a compliment,” says Michael Ableman as he recalls being called a “food terrorist” by cooking celebrity Julia Childs. It was a charge she made after he spoke to a group of culinary professionals with a bag of groceries at his side. One by one, he took out the groceries and told […] Read more

File photo of 10-pound sacks of potatoes loaded on pallets at a Canadian distribution centre. (PierreDesrosiers/iStock/Getty Images)

General, Markets

Federal surplus food program now taking applications

Qualified NGOs sought to move, distribute perishables to 'populations in need'

By Dave Bedard June 16, 2020

Reading Time: 3 minutes A federal program to get food to those who need it, using stockpiles of perishables created by the COVID-19-related shutdown of the dining sector, is now taking applications. The $50 million Surplus Food Rescue Program — which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau telegraphed in a funding announcement May 5 — will take applications from “organizations addressing […] Read more

Crops, Markets

Burnett on Markets: Global grain stocks offer false sense of food security

In event of production shortfall, 60 per cent of available stocks would never be available to market

By Bruce Burnett April 18, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes The economic parallels from the COVID-19 epidemic are quickly changing from comparisons to the recent financial crisis in 2008-09 to the Great Depression. My parents and grandparents lived through the Depression and it did have many impacts on their everyday lives. The main symbol of the Depression-era mentality was the two enormous chest freezers in […] Read more

Left to right: Kelcie Miller-Anderson, Brendon Hebor (former YAS delegate, current YAS ambassador and co-founder of Ripple Farms), Grace Heuver, Leah Davidson, Karly Rumpel, Emmett Sawyer, Komie Hossini (associate communications business partner — Bayer Cropscience Canada).

Guide Business

Ag leaders for tomorrow

It will take innovative thinking to solve our global ag and food problems. Think it can’t be done? Read on

By Gerald Pilger March 5, 2020

Reading Time: 9 minutes How do we feed a hungry world? That was the question posed to 100 young people, 18 to 25 years old, from 45 countries when Bayer CropScience brought them together in Brasilia, Brazil, for the 4th biannual Youth Ag Summit in November. It is a critical question. Amid all the numbers a farmer sees every […] Read more

ICE weekly outlook: Canola waiting on fresh news

U.S. grains: Corn, soy jump despite rising harvest as oil, equities gain

Britain tells its food industry to prepare for CO2 price shock

GFM Network News