Despite the encouragement of crop groups and conservation outfits, winter wheat acreage in Western Canada has decreased sharply to 2.7 million tonnes in 2022 from the record high of 4.8 million in 2008. A sign this trend may reverse, acreage has increased slightly in Manitoba where farmers have struggled to seed spring wheat in wet fields.

While there’s no Tinder for business, Bunge and Viterra hope they’ve found the perfect match. The two companies announced their intent to merge in June 2023. Viterra brings more than 80 Canadian grain-handling centres to the blossoming relationship, along with sales to more than 70 nations. For its part, Bunge is the world’s largest processor of oilseeds, with 300 operations in 40 countries. Of course, with a celebrity wedding comes major scrutiny.

Starting in 2025, farmers with allowable net sales greater than $1 million must complete an agri-environmental risk assessment to receive funds from AgriInvest. A business risk management savings program of the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Partnership (SCAP), government will match farmer contributions up to one per cent of their net sales. Though details are yet to be fully developed, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, an Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) can be used to meet the requirement.

Largely unfamiliar to North Americans, barley tea is a staple in much of Asia, where it is consumed by people of all ages. Sisters Janice Ishizaka and Cilla Watkins launched The Canadian Barley Tea Company to introduce Canadians to the beverage.

The Canadian Alliance for Net-Zero Agri-Food (CANZA) recognizes the carbon credit market can potentially create agricultural revenue streams. As agricultural carbon pricing has slowly developed in recent years, sequestration has typically been measured by lab analysis of soil samples. Though effective, it is a slow and costly process. A rough estimate of $3.30 per acre for sample analysis would be combined with the cost of sampling and further processing. Farmers who wish to participate in the carbon assets market may require speedier data delivery at a lower cost.

When Rayann Campmans signed up for the Picture Butte High School agricultural program, she and her fellow students knew they had to take an active role in directing and building the new initiative. They loved the idea of farm-based learning, but feared the program would be discontinued if it didn’t go over well. They pitched in to support the project. 

A new program aimed at Canada’s agriculture sector can help prepare farms for the impacts of climate change and global demand for reduction of carbon emissions. BMO is Canada’s first large-scale financial institution to introduce such a program.  

Under the latest five-year Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Policy (SCAP) framework, each province must develop its own ag insurance initiative to promote a best management practice (BMP) that produces an environmental benefit while it reduces operational risk.  Farmers who employ the practice could receive a benefit through their premium calculations. In Alberta, program development falls to the Agricultural Financial Services Corporation (AFSC), which partners with the provincial and federal governments to create and deliver farm insurance products. “Every province has been given free rein to do whatever they feel is impactful in that province,” said Jesse Cole, AFSC manager of insurance products and product innovation.

For 27 years, farmers and entomologists have co-operated to record insect data for the Prairie Pest Monitoring Network (PPMN). This has produced a unique scientific resource not available in other parts of the world, said Meghan Vankosky, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada entomology research scientist and PPMN co-chair. Her peers in countries such as Australia have not surveyed the ebbs and flows of insect populations as widely or for as long as the PPMN. “Having so much information from such a huge geographical area over such a long period of time is very unique from what I understand,” she said.

Farmers can’t control the weather nor commodity prices, but they can control their mental health—how they think, feel and engage with the world, said Linda Hunt, director of AgKnow Alberta Farm Mental Health Network.