Despite how wet it was across much of Western Canada, including parts of southern Alberta, Barry King says he didn’t get stuck once this year harvesting about 30,000 tons of grass and grain silage. The longtime custom operator of King Custom Farming, based out of High River, Alta., says for the first time ever they […] Read more
Make Silage When The Rain Stops
OYF 2010 Awards Come To Victoria
Some of Canada’s most progressive and forward-thinking crop and livestock producers will be meeting in Victoria, B. C. in late November for the 30th national awards program recognizing Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers (OYF). Seven new regional nominees representing all parts of Canada, their families, and many of the OYF alumni who were nominated in previous […] Read more
Diversification Spells Opportunity For Seed Producer
Producing a wider range of crops and selling seed in a global market has been the focus of a young southern Alberta farm couple working to keep pace with the ever-changing needs in agriculture. Ryan and Annette Mercer, who operate Mercer Seeds at Lethbridge, Alta., have grown beyond the cereals, flax and canola seed business […] Read more
Maurers Provide Specialty Products For The World
Ryan and Lauren Maurer may farm in central Saskatchewan, but a good part of their business focus is on bread in England and beer in Japan. With a land base of 11,000 acres — about 9,500 of that in annual crop production — the Maurers, who farm near Grenfell, east of Regina, on the edge […] Read more
Community Shared Agriculture Adds Stability
A young Nova Scotia couple, who has pioneered a profitable direct-marketing system for tonnes of organic vegetables, say they hope to expand their program that provides a strong, dependable market, and one-on-one contact with consumers. Josh Oulton and Patricia Bishop, who farm at Port Williams (about an hour from Halifax) say the Community Shared Agriculture […] Read more
Earliest Soybean Harvest In 60 Years
We had a call in late September from Ed Molzan who farms at Alvinston in southwest Ontario. Alvinston is west of London and south of Sarnia. As a longtime reader ofGrainews (for 25 years) and as a soybean grower (for 60 years), Ed called to let us know he had the earliest soybean crop ever […] Read more
Polish Canola Still Has A Fit
If it would have helped this year — or any year — to have a decent-yielding, 90-day canola variety that could have been seeded as late as June 1, then keep your eye on a new Polish canola variety which will be available to western Canadian farmers in 2011. Mastin Seeds of Sundre, Alta., ( […] Read more
Getting A Jump On Crop Consulting
Hendrik Feenstra may be too young to hang out a shingle as a crop consultant, but the southern Alberta teenager certainly knows his lygus bugs from a flea beetle. Feenstra, who is just 13, is the youngest person in Canada, and perhaps North America, to have completed and passed an intensive examination process to become […] Read more
Someday I might retire and do something easy, like farming
I had an email this morning from the head cheese at FBC (Farm Business Communications is the division of our parent company that looks after our family of publications including Grainews, Canadian Cattleman, Country Guide, Alberta Farmer Express and Manitoba Co-operator, New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic – okay, those last three aren’t part […] Read more
The dirty business of shipping untagged cattle
I had a long and sometimes emotional conversation yesterday with Saskatchewan rancher Ken Habermehl. He recently was cleared of any wrong doing in a hearing regarding the shipment of cattle to a community pasture in May 2009, where it was found upon arrival that seven animals did not have CFIA approved RFID ear tags. […] Read more