Ag News

The Conservative party's agriculture critic says the Liberal government isn't fighting for Canadian producers.

The United Kingdom wants to join the Asia-Pacific trading block which includes Canada and ten other countries.

Foothills MP John Barlow says while the Conservatives are pro-trade and don't oppose the UK becoming part of the bloc, there need to be changes.

It's been one week since the Prime Minister shuffled his cabinet.

John Barlow, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Agri-Food says he's disappointed with the decision to return Lawrence MacAulay to the role of Federal Agriculture Minister.

Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan held its Food Influencer Farm Tours last month.

The group's monthly newsletter talked about the event and its goal to bring food influencers from across Canada together to meet farmers and ranchers in an effort to educate and build trust in agriculture.

This year’s tour included dietitians, food writers, chefs, educators, curriculum developers, and three high-ranking officials from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

The Minister for the Water Security Agency (WSA) Jeremy Cockrill says they recognize the need throughout the province and are looking to help where they can.

He says the WSA is looking to make water available to producers in areas experiencing drought conditions or allow ranchers to utilize vacant WSA-owned lands for feed supplies.

Some support is being offered by the Water Security Agency for farmers and ranchers experiencing drought conditions.

Rain in July was not a common occurrence, which has created a number of challenges for producers. Read the latest Weekly Crop Report for our region from the province here.

Agriculture Minister Derek Johnson has announced changes to the Agricultural Crown Lands (ACL) Leases and Permits Regulation .

The ACL program is designed to support improving forage productivity, growing the livestock industry and advancing sustainability.

He notes that the ACL Program also needs to work for leaseholders and Indigenous Peoples who use these lands for traditional purposes and to exercise treaty rights. 

Ottawa and the Province have announced $1.9 million in funding for 54 projects under the Sustainable CAP programs Resilient Agricultural Landscape Program (RALP). 

Projects are based on their ability to increase the environmental resilience of agricultural landscapes by adopting practices that increase environmental benefits with money flowing through two priority streams - the Watershed Resilience stream and the Carbon Sequestration and Grassland Resilience stream.

A number of areas in the South West are experiencing another year of drought.

The Saskatchewan Cattlemens Association is holding a couple of Townhall Meetings this week in the area to discuss the drought and its overall impact.

SCA's CEO Grant McLellan talks about some of the ideas that came out of the meetings last week in Perdue and Kindersley.

The primary focus of the grain plan is to set out the volume of grain and grain products that CN plans to move for the year based on what customers (elevators) offer up for movement and to determine if CN has the resources in place to move that volume.

David Przednowek,  assistant vice president of grain for CN says for this year the volumes that they expect to move are up in the air based on what they are hearing from customers, and what you see out in the field given the impact of the dryness and long term drought in Western Canada.

Farm groups are coming out in support of the Canadian Grain Commission's decision to repeal its plans to change the primary and export tolerances for test weight and total foreign material for various classes of wheat and Canadian Amber Durum.

The change would have come into effect on Tuesday but the CGC said its backing away from the move after hearing stakeholder concerns.

Last week, the National Farmers Union and the Wheat Growers Association called on Minister MacAuley to stop the move as it would have a substantial and negative impact on farmer incomes.