Lees insight

Well here is knowledge I don’t plan to use any time soon, but in dealing with the realities of farming and animal agriculture in general I received a lesson last week in the proper way to euthanize an animal. I’ve had to dispatch a few animals myself over the years, and have been around when […] Read more

God, I am getting old. I was just reading about the possible takeover of Syngenta by Monsanto…both companies have investment firms investigating the options of the merger that would create one large ag chemical and seed company with combined sales of $40 billion annually. Gee, that sounds like a pretty big operation. I’ve always admitted […] Read more

Farming Smarter, the southern Alberta applied research association, based in Lethbridge, launched my film career today. I play a brief but pivotal role in Farming Smarter’s latest promotional video called “Not Grandpa’s Farm”. If you really pay attention near the end, I have a 3.5 second dramatic scene as an old fart with a walking […] Read more

Various players of the Canadian livestock feeding industry are busy adding their two-cents worth (or it might be $2 worth) of comments to a proposal by the Canadian Grain Commission to license feedmills. Unless Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has a change of heart, it looks like the licensing will happen. What the industry is doing […] Read more

There is a real, live, actual ranching person in central Idaho called Heather Smith Thomas. I’ve met her. Thomas’ columns and features stories have been appearing in Grainews, Canadian Cattlemen Magazine, and numerous U.S. publications for more than 30 years. But it wasn’t until a Friday morning in late March that she and a Grainews […] Read more

I don’t know if the Ostrich Festival in Chandler, Arizona will become an annual destination, but it was good to at least check it out once. I was surprised that an annual event that is expected to draw about 300,000 over the weekend really didn’t have an awful lot to do with ostriches. Apparently it […] Read more

  You don’t see cattle being fed like this in Western Canada. Actually you do on thousands of farms across the Prairies. But seeing these Black Angus cattle in a field in southern Idaho this week inspired me to resume my blog. This photo was taken somewhere near Idaho Falls in southern Idaho — all new […] Read more

Seed growers from Carmen, Manitoba and potato farmers from Kinkora, P.E.I. have been named Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers for 2014. Myron and Jill Krahn, who crop about 3,000 acres of grains, oilseeds and special crops and Andrew and Heidi Lawless who are part of a partnership producing about 1,200 acres of potatoes were selected national […] Read more

I’ve been in Eastern Canada less than 24 hours and I’ve already eaten veal liver twice. I had it once yesterday at the Toronto airport because it was recommended by the waitress, (maybe it was difficult to move) and I had it again last night for dinner at a trendy little restaurant on St. Jean […] Read more

There is an interesting grain handling and export project about to begin shipping wheat and canola from Saskatchewan and Manitoba into the U.S. this fall. At the community of Northgate in southeast Sask., a Canadian company with U.S. interests is developing a rail terminal to buy and transport grain and oilseeds south into U.S. markets […] Read more