On a sweltering day in June, Nichole Neubauer enlisted a recent graduate of the Medicine Hat College Sustainable Innovation program to set up a ferruginous hawk nesting platform on a grassland pasture area on her farm near the southern Alberta city. Atop a telephone pole roughly four metres off the ground, cross pieces support the flat, triangular structure. Neubauer said the hawks have historically helped control the farm’s rodent population and the platform will assist in efforts to secure a healthy future for the birds. The project is in line with an Alberta Environment and Protected Areas project that has made significant strides to restore the hawk’s diminished population.

Scientists continue to do their part in the fight against nasty cereal diseases. A Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) team has completed an innovative three-year study that will allow for faster recognition and identification of rust and Fusarium types.

Team Alberta Crops conducted a three-year, $1.5-million project to measure pesticide concentrations on farm wetlands. The organization’s commission members, product manufacturers and Results Driven Agriculture Research provided funding.

It’s been 40 years since the Government of Canada released its first soil health report, which called for the nation to address a then-dire future of its soils. On June 6, the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry tabled a new report that followed 17 months of consultation, input from expert witnesses, international conferences and cross-country, fact-finding missions. It is entitled Critical Ground: Why Soil is Essential to Canada’s Economic, Environmental, Human, and Social Health.

Two Alberta businesses have found value in the rescue of spent grain, a byproduct of the brewing process. Such products illustrate the previously overlooked value of food waste.

Spurred by shrinking barley acreage over the past 20 years, western Canadian cattle feeders have increasingly included wheat in feedlot diets. Over this time, Canadian barley acreage declined by nearly 155,000 acres annually on average, while wheat production climbed approximately 440,000 acres each year. Though its availability and cost competitiveness have made it a natural choice, little research had been conducted to examine the use of wheat in cattle rations.

Crop exports are a huge source of revenue for Alberta’s ag industry as is evidenced by its $16.2 billion economic contribution. However, the province’s domestic food manufacturing sales sector was worth a whopping $22.7 billion that same year.

Canterra Seeds partnered with Maker’s Malt of Rosthern, SK, and Rafter R Brewing of Maple Creek, SK, to test the performance of a new barley variety in the field, malthouse and brewery. Registered in 2022, AAC Prairie is touted as a successor to AC Metcalfe as it boasts an even more robust enzyme package. This is desirable for multinational breweries as the adjuncts they use, such as corn and rice, lack the enzymes that break down carbohydrates into fermentable sugars. The malt component must oversupply enzymes to compensate.

While demand for flour products jumped by 24 per cent in Alberta between 2019 and 2022, the province’s exports of wheat and meslin flour also increased to $19.8 million in 2023 from $8.6 million in 2019.

Alberta farmers have a new option to be paid for the C02 they sequester. A program by Trimble will compensate those who demonstrate and quantify sustainable on-farm nitrogen management practices.