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
Hungry in Canada
Shocking numbers of Canadians are getting left hungry and malnourished
Feeding the farmer
As global population estimates get scaled back, our sense of priorities is beginning to change
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
Pulse weekly outlook: World Pulses Day celebrated
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
Argentina suspends corn exports to ensure domestic food supplies
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
Toronto’s golden Greenbelt
Now that the world’s largest greenbelt has outlasted the political controversies, could you farm there?
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
Food in its place
Canada’s top urban-agriculture advocate admits that mostly it isn’t farming. So why does he keep pushing?
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
Federal surplus food program now taking applications
Qualified NGOs sought to move, distribute perishables to 'populations in need'
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
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
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
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
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
Maple Leaf lands ‘sustainability-linked’ credit
Reading Time: 2 minutes Canadian food processor Maple Leaf Foods is taking its recently-established sustainability cred to the bank. The Toronto food firm announced Wednesday it’s the first Canadian company to secure “sustainability-linked terms” for its credit facilities. Specifically, the company has picked up an unsecured committed revolving line of credit and two unsecured committed term facilities for a […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
