Reading Time: 4 minutes Alison Blay-Palmer has been studying and promoting local food systems for nearly 20 years, and her enthusiasm for the topic is greater than ever. Blay-Palmer is director of the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., where she explores the big questions around sustainability. Those big questions include social justice, […] Read more
Is local food good for farmers?
Canada’s social sciences council is investing $2.4 million in local food research. Here’s what they hope to learn
A million women farmers
To get big numbers of women farmers, the U.S. looks to small farms
Reading Time: 6 minutes According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, the number of female-operated farms in the U.S. more than doubled between 1982 and 2012. On top of that, if you add in the number of women who participate on male-led or jointly led farms as primary and secondary operators, the U.S. now has nearly one million female […] Read more
Soy wins health claim
The label approval is seen as an important step toward increased Canadian consumption
Reading Time: 6 minutes The popular saying is that good things come in small packages, which exactly describes Canada in terms of its overall output as one of the world’s soybean producers. Because good things do come from Canada. In fact, they may even be great things, thanks to our capabilities at producing high-quality identity-preserved, non-GMO soybeans, as we […] Read more
Going underground for soil ecology
Soil is far more than just dirt. Are you nurturing the organisms that help it grow great crops?
Reading Time: 5 minutes A warm, early-July breeze blew through a wheat field in northeastern Saskatchewan, not far from Nipawin. The heads had just emerged and were still green, but the field was taking on that fuzzy look that you typically get with a fresh, bearded cereal. This field was unusual, however, because even though you couldn’t see it, […] Read more
Our toughest marketing challenge
Farmers are losing respect. Now is the time to win it back, before the costs get even worse
Reading Time: 4 minutes Rodney Dangerfield built a comic career on his signature line: “I don’t get no respect.” But for the agricultural industry, loss of respect is no laughing matter. The public perception of agriculture is steadily eroding. Last fall, Harris Interactive asked 2,537 Americans to name the most prestigious occupations. As you might guess, doctors topped the […] Read more
University sets its sights on fusarium
This major U of M lab program hopes to stop fusarium before it starts
Reading Time: 4 minutes Protecting crops from the ravages of fusarium is a never-ending job for investigators like Dr. Dilantha Fernando and his staff at the University of Manitoba. The most common species of the pathogen is fusarium graminearum, commonly known as fusarium head blight (FHB) or fusarium scab. It’s a cereal crop pathogen that has become the most […] Read more
Guide Health: Which iron is the right iron?
Symptoms of iron deficiency and choosing the right supplement for your needs
Reading Time: 3 minutes You need iron in your body for your red blood cells to have enough hemoglobin to carry oxygen through the blood system to your cells. A reduced number of red blood cells (i.e. erythrocytes) is called anemia. Iron-deficient anemia is the result of low iron levels. Your body contains about 3.5 grams of iron, of […] Read more
LGBT on the farm
On these farms, diversity is good for business
Reading Time: 7 minutes Now 33, Otis Bell admits he’s outside the mainstream of agriculture. Growing up in Seattle, Bell next lived in Olympia, where he got his first taste of growing plants and gardening, and where he decided to get more directly involved with farming. “I think being queer made me take a step out of some of […] Read more
VIDEO: Putting more ‘superfood’ in the North American diet
Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s hardly an exaggeration to call pulses a ‘superfood’ — they’re high in protein and other nutrients, they’ve been proven to reduce bad cholesterol and they provide free nitrogen for the farmers who grow them. But while they’re a staple in diets in the Middle East, consumption is low in North America. In this video, […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
