Ag News

Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay has announced over $2 million for Canada's organic industry.

The Canada Organic Trade Association will receive over $1.1 million to facilitate the growth of the organic sector by resolving market access issues, ensuring Canadian organic products are competitive, building export capacity, and developing domestic opportunities. 

Executive Administrator for the Manitoba Livestock Marketing Association, Rick Wright, attended the Livestock Marketing Association (LMA) Annual Convention in Oklahoma City earlier this month.

The LMA Annual Convention is the premiere annual gathering of the livestock marketing industry with livestock auction market owners, dealers, auctioneers, and others involved in the livestock marketing industry.  This is a time to network, learn from keynote speakers, share innovative ideas and support the cattle industry as a whole. 

Thursday was a busy day in the Bernie Kemick Arena as Frontier Day's activities kicked off in the Livestock Area. 

4-Her's from around the Southwest took part in the 4H Regional Judging Competition.

The top eight qualifying senior members will represent the region at the Provincial Judging Competition.  

There was strong competition in the show ring with the Junior Breed Show, Purebred, Crossbred and All Breed Championships.

Steele Sylvestre of Coronach and her heifer "Smurfette" a polled hereford won the Junior Breed Show.

Cyle and Erica Stewart from Pine Ranch at Morse have been named Saskatchewan's 2024 Outstanding Young Farmers.

The pair run a commercial cow/calf operation and grass yearlings in the Coteau Hill and have been dealing with a severe drought for the last seven years.

The couple are constantly looking at ways to learn and improve their production practices from soil health to cattle nutrition and low stress handling.

Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) held its official groundbreaking ceremony this week in Yorkton as it starts construction on a new pea protein isolate production plant.

The new plant will be located next to the company's current LDC canola crushing facility.

The company says the new pea protein isolate production facility is expected to be ready by the end of 2025, and will employ about 60 people.

The Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization will be adding a new touch to their July field day coming up in July.  They've added a couple of chartered buses to enable them to travel as a group to more test plot sites.

Researchers with an interest in Canola were out in the fields this week talking with producers as part Manitoba Canola Growers Research Camp 2024.

Amy Delaquis, the Research Manager with Manitoba Canola says this is the third year that they've ran the program and this year will be touring farms in the Pembina Valley area.

"We try to get researchers that cover a good range of disciplines. So agronomy to ag biz, to end-use, soil fertility. Researchers from a lot of different areas and bring them together to have some of these conversations."

Canada's beef sector would like to see an end to the labour dispute at the Cargill Dunlop facility in Guelph.

The Canadian Cattle Association (CCA), National Cattle Feeders’ Association (NCFA) and Beef Farmers of Ontario note that the beef sector relies on a resilient processing industry across the country.

Members of UFCW Local 175 walked off the job in May, and there are no signs of an immediate resolution.

The Cargill Dunlop facility is the major processing facility for Canada’s largest fed-cattle region after Alberta.

Alberta's Agri-Processing Investment Tax Credit program is helping to build the first state-of-the-art milk concentration plant in Canada.

Under the program, DIW Buildings & Land Corporation has qualified for conditional approval for a tax credit of about $7.6 million.

DIW Buildings & Land Corporation (Dairy Innovation West) is a collaboration between Alberta Milk, Dairy Farmers of Manitoba, SaskMilk, and the BC Dairy Association.

With a heavy storm leaving its mark on the southeast crops in the area have been one of the main recipients of heavy hail.

Farmers are hoping that the hail hits them soft enough that their crops will be able to grow well enough for the rest of the summer season.

Edgar Hammermeister, a local agrologist, chatted with farmers to see just how the southeast area fared in the storm.