General

The federal government plans to start accepting applications this summer from private-sector firms interested in expanding rural Canada’s broadband access. Speaking Thursday at Adstock, Que., about 30 km east of Thetford Mines, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the government has wrapped up a “comprehensive nationwide survey of broadband access” to find the regions with “the […] Read more

The notion that the food traveling the shorter distance from gate to plate is the most environmentally friendly is being challenged in a new British study and in a Canadian policy paper. Cranfield University, based in Bedfordshire in the east of England, recently released a new comparative life-cycle assessment of food commodities, a £161,000, two-year […] Read more

Canadians are missing out on information about the relationship between diet and health as “rigid” advertising standards prevent food companies from claiming even “potential” health benefits for many products. That’s the basis of the argument in a new research report from the Fraser Institute, in which Canadian and U.S. rules are compared to see if […] Read more

Prices farmers received for their commodities fell 4.8 per cent in May compared with May a year earlier, as the crops index fell, offsetting an increase in the total livestock and animal products index, Statistics Canada reported. The prices producers received for crops in May were 14.4 per cent lower compared with May 2008, the […] Read more

Canada’s foreign affairs department has named its current chief political-economic officer as its new representative to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). James Fox, who had also served as the department’s assistant deputy minister for Europe, the Middle East and Maghreb since last August, now also becomes Canada’s ambassador to Italy and its […] Read more

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Farm Credit Canada has renewed and raised its cash support of the Canadian 4-H Council’s “4-H 4-Ever” promotional program. The federal farm and agribusiness lending agency has pledged $250,000 to the program for each of the next four years, up from its total commitment of $600,000 when it helped launch the program in October 2006. […] Read more

Enrolment in Canadian universities’ ag and natural resources programs, especially by women, rose for 2007-08 at a rate well above universities’ overall average, compared to the previous year. Which arguably isn’t saying much, as enrolment in university programs overall rose just 0.6 per cent in that time — a number Statistics Canada describes as a […] Read more

The environmental portion of the federal/provincial Growing Forward farm funding policy framework has been finalized to include a $200 million, five-year federal pledge for on-farm technical help and information-sharing. “Funding will support initiatives to help farmers transfer research and knowledge into practice and to use science to improve their outcomes,” the government said in a […] Read more

Canada has pledged to more than double its investments in food security in developing countries, increasing its funding by $600 million over three years. Prime Minister Stephen Harper committed the added cash, bringing total food security program funding to $1.18 billion over three years, in an announcement Thursday during the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy. […] Read more