Late last year, Budweiser launched barley seeds into space hoping to learn how microgravity affects the raw product used to make its beer.

More than 120 farms will formally throw open their gates to the public on August 18 and 19 as Alberta Open Farm Days celebrates its sixth year. Vegetable growers, grain and oilseed farmers, ranchers, cheesemakers, beekeepers and more are among the event’s host farmers who will showcase the diversity of the province’s agricultural industry.

You can call Brian Tischler many things—an innovator, a programmer, a farmer—but don’t call him a techie. Despite eschewing the title, He is the creator of AgOpenGPS, a cutting-edge, free, open-source code used to automate farm vehicles. With users all over North America and even a few in Europe, the project Tischler started as a way to make his own farm more efficient has grown more than he could have expected.

Canada is one of the world’s top grain exporters, and wheat and barley will make up a crucial component of the Canadian government’s plan to boost agri-food exports to $75 billion from $55 billion annually by 2025.

It was exuberantly clear the Alberta Beer Awards ceremony was a hit with its more than 500 attendees. A diverse selection of brewers, beer industry professionals and aficionados gathered at Calgary’s Palace Theatre on March 14 for a raucous wrap to the second annual Alberta Small Brewers Association (ASBA) Alberta Craft Brewing Convention.

Rebecca Cooper loves simplicity. On her blog, Simple as That, she applies simplicity to daily life, cooking, holidaying and photo taking. The professional photographer and mother of four encourages others to slow down and appreciate every moment.

If you’ve sipped Alberta craft beer lately, you may have tasted barley grown, malted and possibly even brewed by the Hamill family who operate Red Shed Malting. In charge of the malting process, Joe Hamill also operates Hamill Brothers Brewing with his brother Matt. Joe typically starts his day in the business’s namesake red malt house on his family’s farm near Innisfail. In the germination room, where barley kernels are sprouted prior to roasting, it smells like fresh grass and cucumber. As he checks on the ongoing malting processes, he may begin work on a batch of specialty malt for a brewer client. “That’s when you get those nice biscuit, coffee smells coming out of the roaster,” Joe explained.

Following her first book, Farmwives in Profile: 17 Women: 17 Candid Questions About Their Lives, Lloydminster-area photographer and author Billi J. Miller has penned Farmwives 2: An Inspiring Look at the Lives of the New Canadian Farmwives. Part one examined the lives of 17 Alberta farm women aged 55 to 90 in traditional homemaking roles. […]

Outside Canmore’s JK Bakery Cafe on a bright and pine-scented day, the snow-capped slate-blue Rockies circle the alpine town. Inside, the oven-warm waft of fresh-baked bread and the comforting buzz of café conversation completes the undeniable draw of this artisanal bakery. The soup-and-sandwich combo prepared with fresh bread is a bestseller, and customers sitting for coffee and pastry walk away with loaves of German rye, Danish sourdough rye or ciabatta buns, all appealingly basketed behind the main counter.

Darrell Bricker sees opportunity in farming and the food industry. The CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs says Canadians are living longer, eating healthier and welcoming immigrants like never before, bringing new residents hungry for a taste from their former homelands. The changing nature of the country’s consumer demographics presents open doors for farmers and agri-food entrepreneurs.