Lees insight

I don’t believe I have seen any studies yet challenging the value of motherhood, but I am sure one is underway somewhere. In that vane, it was interesting to read this week that scientists are working to develop a more mechanical means to produce ethanol, which could replace the nasty practice of producing biofuels from […] Read more

It has been another exciting week here at the Grainews foreign office in Calgary. First, I received a news release about a new-to-Canada herbicide that will end all your worries over purple and yellow nutsedge. I thought, “this is great news, except I have never heard of purple and yellow nutsedge…I obviously have been in […] Read more

Since this blog thing has healed, I have no excuse now not to get into gear with some profound insights. I like avoiding big issues like grain transportation. They are too complex. Lisa Guenther did a great report in the March 4 issue of Grainews. Farmers couldn’t move grain this winter. So what were the […] Read more

I was talking with Eric Boulton, 85, and his daughter Alexa Emerson recently about their beef operation on Gabriola Island just off the east coast of Vancouver Island (near Nanaimo). With an 85 head cowherd, they raise mostly Limousin calves for a local fresh meat market. Most of the market heifers, finished on their Somerset […] Read more

I like wading in on complex, scientific topics like antibiotic resistance blamed on the use of too many antibiotics in the livestock industry, because then I can clear things up for the average, lay reader. So on this subject I can say that I completely agree — yes antibiotics are used in the livestock industry. […] Read more

There is a movement afoot in the Canadian beef industry to get all sectors from producers through to retailers singing from the same hymnbook. It may be an oversimplification of what the Straw Man Beef Industry Initiative is about, but the effort is geared at creating a more organized and targeted Canadian beef production system, […] Read more

If you are looking for a great coffee-table book that does a beautiful job of capturing the images of ranch life in Western Canada, Wyoming photographer JoAnne Meeker has just released a new book that speaks volumes in a few words. You may think it is pushing it to consider a photo of a horse […] Read more

Nothing brightens my day faster than a phone call from Ieuan Evans explaining the virtues of copper in wheat production. I don’t know if the micronutrient will actually seed the crop for you or run the combine for eight hours, but other than that it can do just about everything else in helping to produce […] Read more

After a stressful week of being at their best everyone could finally relax late last Friday as two farm couples from Alberta and Atlantic Canada were named winners of the national Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers award in Regina, Sask. Grain and oilseed producers Michael Kalisvaart and his wife Karen Jansen from Gibbons, Alberta and dairy […] Read more