The Canadian agriculture industry came out cheering in May of this year when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced its updated guidance on plant breeding innovation.

Now in its second year, the Palette Skills Automation and Digital Agriculture Specialist Program is intended as a gateway for much-needed, skilled digital professionals to enter the agriculture sector. The eight-week Digital Agriculture course is funded by the federal government and the Enterprise Machine Intelligence and Learning Initiative. Open to post-secondary graduates with minimum three years of work experience, it includes subjects such as AI, big data, drones, GIS, IoT and robotics.

Last year, seeing the increasing need for collaborative leadership across the agriculture industry, Chamber members created its Food Supply Council. This cross-sector coalition of agribusinesses, associations and transportation companies strives to provide leadership that will advance Canadian agriculture and solve key industry challenges.

Always a big winter pastime for Canadians, curling it is especially important to farmers and rural communities on the Prairies. The above photo of an outdoor curling event was snapped in Peace River in 1921.

Research is an essential component for the improvement of Canadian barley production. The Alberta Barley Student Scholarship provides three post-secondary students with $2,000 to support barley-related projects.

Consumers who want answers about the beef industry and farmers who want to understand shoppers’ perspectives both need trustworthy data.

The Ag for Life Rural Safety Unit redeployed in August of 2022 at Whoop-Up Days in Lethbridge. The mobile trailer attraction allows children and their families to learn about the hazards of rural life through digital games, hands-on learning experiences and print resources.

Insects can do serious damage within grain bins. Tasked by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada with the launch of a comprehensive survey of insect impacts on stored grain in 2020, researcher Vincent Hervet set out to update data last collected in the 1980s.

TR19655. No, it’s not the name of a robot from the latest Star Wars movie. Rather, it’s the newest two-row malting barley variety developed by the Field Crop Development Centre (FCDC) at Olds College.

It is a valuable livestock feed, food ingredient, beer component and is even used to lower blood pressure, but if barley loses its market, farmers will feel the economic pressure. After Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver in 2019, China banned two major Canadian grain trading companies from exporting canola seed to that country. While the three-year prohibition was lifted in May of 2022, it left the barley sector to question its own trade relationship with China. Could Canada be next? If so, what then?