In January of this year, the Rural Municipalities of Alberta revealed energy companies owe a total of $173 million in unpaid municipal property taxes on wellsites. This added to the growing frustration of rural landowners over rental payment problems. Some have received requests from oil and gas companies to cut payments, while others have had compensation reduced by up to 50 per cent or halted completely without notice.

BY IAN DOIG • PHOTOS COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA PRESS A senior scholar at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business, Paul D. Earl is the author of The Rise and Fall of United Grain Growers: Cooperatives, Market Regulation, and Free Enterprise. His extensive industry experience includes having worked for United Grain Growers […]

Knowledge is everything in controlling a difficult pest such as wireworm. “You’ve got to know your enemy,” said Haley Catton, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) research scientist. With funding from the Alberta Wheat Commission and the Western Grains Research Foundation, she has led a three-year project that will produce a huge amount of wireworm data and contribute to integrated management approaches.

Alberta’s irrigation districts will continue to receive rehabilitation funding through 2022, albeit less than the historical average. In 2020, the 13 districts will share $14 million of Irrigation Rehabilitation Program (IRP) cash, a drop of about $6 million from the previous year. Next year, the districts will be allotted $10 million followed by $12 million in both 2021 and 2022.

As part of its 2020/21 budget, the Alberta government announced a budget cut of $5.3 million to the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC). However, the Crown corporation’s chief financial and innovation officer said farmers and agribusiness owners who rely on AFSC for loans, crop insurance and disaster assistance shouldn’t panic. The organization’s staff plan to sharpen their pencils to cut administration costs, rather than customer service.

Non-alcoholic beer is often associated with weak flavour, or worse, no flavour. But that’s changing. More and more, consumers are reaching for low- or no-alcohol beers when they’re cutting calories or avoiding alcohol. A growing variety of options and flavour profiles is now available to beer lovers.

Consumers still question whether or not to eat wheat. Some are increasingly more confused and even scared about the consumption of wheat. The gluten-free trend continues to subside, but low-carb diets are undergoing a resurgence.

Canada’s agriculture sector waited with bated breath for the outcome of the federal–provincial–territorial agriculture ministers meeting held this past December in Ottawa. The highly anticipated meeting was announced in July when the ministers made a collective commitment to examine potential improvements to the business risk management (BRM) suite of programs before the end of the calendar year.

In this 1958 photo, Robert Black is obviously pleased with the water flow on the Golden Valley Irrigation Farm, which he co-owned near Medicine Hat. And with good reason.

With early snowfalls having impacted harvests in recent years, the time couldn’t be better for Dean Spaner’s wheat breeding program to hit its stride. A University of Alberta professor and plant breeder, Spaner focuses on bringing high-yielding but early-maturing wheat varieties to market. It’s a natural fit for the northernmost wheat breeding program on the continent.