Yara’s fertilizer terminal at Stockton, California. (Sebastian Braum photo, Yara.com)

Fertilizer maker Yara says world faces extreme food supply shock

Sanctions cut global fertilizer supply 15 per cent, company says

Davos, Switzerland | Reuters — Norwegian fertilizer giant Yara says donors urgently need to close the U.N.’s $10 billion food programme funding gap to avoid a catastrophe as sanctions on Russian fertilizers and Ukraine’s grain export problems have created an extreme global shock. “The world has realized that food can be a weapon and it […] Read more

File photo of barrels on display in a Nova Scotia vineyard. (Tashka/iStock/Getty Images)

Wastewater regulation eased for Nova Scotia on-farm processing

Nova Scotia has introduced regulatory changes that allow on-farm processing operations to better manage wastewater on their smaller scale. The changes, which took effect May 11, come at the request of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture (NSFA) — which has said that owners of small farm-level processing facilities shouldn’t be treated the same as […] Read more


Scholar L.L. Newman, who exhaustively researched the history of the Nanaimo bar, learned that the sweet was first mentioned in print in the 1947 Vancouver Sun...

Canadiana classics, Part 1: Nanaimo bars

First We Eat: This favourite has been around for years and was likely developed by a member of the Nanaimo Hospital Auxiliary

I lived in Vancouver in my 20s. Yaletown didn’t exist yet, other than as hulking rows of empty warehouses to be bicycled past quickly. Granville Island was an industrial wasteland, the Fairview Slopes didn’t exist, and False Creek was still a reclamation project. Elsewhere in town, the Ridge Theatre became known as the city’s repertory […] Read more

Yuri and Oleksiy, farmers wearing body armours and helmets, prepare for field work in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region amid Russia’s invasion, on April 26, 2022. (Photo: Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino)

Worsening global food security needs Ukraine, Russia production, UN chief says

Abuja | Reuters — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday the problem of global food security could not be solved without restoring Ukrainian agricultural production and Russian food and fertilizer output to the world market. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has added to volatility in financial markets, sending commodity prices higher and affecting logistics, […] Read more


Was the planting of lentils by an early immigrant family the forerunner of today’s crops?

Was the planting of lentils by an early immigrant family the forerunner of today’s crops?

First We Eat: In 2020 Canadian-grown lentils generated over $2 billion in export sales

In 1923, Jirys Ya’qūb Sallūm kissed his wife and young sons goodbye in the town of Qar’awn, located in the Biqa’ Valley, in the French protectorate of Lebanon and Syria. Speaking only Arabic, he travelled to Canada to work for a relative who had a farm in southwestern Saskatchewan. He wanted a safer home for […] Read more

A farm worker unloads Ukrainian-made fertilizer from a truck on April 5, 2022 to use on a wheat field near the village of Yakovlivka, outside Kharkiv, after it was hit by an aerial bombardment. (Photo: Reuters/Thomas Peter)

Farming behind the lines: Ukraine’s farmers sow amidst wreckage

Despite their best efforts, however, famine looms as war rages

In early April, Ukrainian soldiers expelled the Russian invaders from the northern regions of Ukraine: Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions. The wounded enemy left, leaving behind burned-out war machines and the unburied corpses of his soldiers. However, the invaders managed to do a lot of damage. Many of you are probably aware of the atrocities […] Read more


Workers in the JBS beef plant at Brooks, Alta. appear in a screen shot from a 2018 corporate video. (JBS Canada video screengrab via YouTube)

Changes to TFW program to expand worker availability

Workplace LMIAs now valid for 18 months

The federal government is boosting the availability of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) to ag and other understaffed sectors under a list of policy changes announced Monday. Employment and Workforce Development Minister Carla Qualtrough announced what’s called the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program Workforce Solutions Road Map, which the government said “marks the next step in […] Read more

Why do we cook?

Why do we cook?

First We Eat: Cooking needn’t be just a chore we do every day – it could help us improve our metal health and well-being

When bad news hits or good news shows its smiling face, I head to the butcher block and start chopping. When my neighbour or my kids visit. When we need comfort. When Dave remembers another in his wonderfully long list of our anniversaries. The reasons we cook are many, and often have nothing to do […] Read more


The United Nations’ General Assembly Hall in Manhattan. (BWZenith/iStock/Getty Images)

Food, farming, forestry must be transformed to curb global warming, UN says

Earlier draft of panel report called for reduced intake of meat

Reuters — Protecting forests, changing diets, and altering farming methods could contribute around a quarter of the greenhouse gas cuts needed to avert the worst impacts of climate change, according to the United Nations’ climate panel. But the changes are unlikely to happen unless governments act to spur them along, the report from the Intergovernmental […] Read more

Southeast Asian foods — Part 2: Try Thai

Southeast Asian foods — Part 2: Try Thai

First We Eat: Thai cuisine offers contrasts in tastes, textures and temperatures

When talking about Thai food on the TV show “Parts Unknown,” the late Tony Bourdain said, “It was like discovering a colour I never knew existed before. A whole new crayon box full of colours.” Bourdain loved Thailand, and had the means to visit it repeatedly. Lucky man. But his life was tougher than we […] Read more