By Paul Hermans
With harvest complete, focus shifts to seed selection for the 2024 growing season and beyond.
Looking back allows us to predict future crop performance. From a soy-bean perspective, we can learn lots from the 2023 growing season to help us succeed in the future. A little detective sleuthing will help us win big – solving crop-scene cases and achieving optimum yields.
By Leslie Stewart
Do you have a collector on your shopping list this holiday season? Maybe you’ve been interested in starting your own collection and would like to know more about farm antiques?
Farming is a constantly evolving industry. While we rely on precision technology, our relatives and ancestors had a more hands-on approach. Items from those days bring back fond memories and curiosity for enthusiasts.
By Emily Croft
The OFA created the Revive Fund in 2020 to support projects created by regional federations to improve their rural communities.
“The Revive Fund started as a COVID project for us,” says Drew Spoelstra, vice-president of OFA.
“We had some significant savings because we couldn’t have meetings or events or gather as a board in person.”
The fund was created using the saved money as a way for the OFA to continue to give back to their membership.
For Long-Term Benefits
By Paul Hermans
Going forward as an industry the biggest limiting factor to higher yields will be water availability.
If you live anywhere in Eastern Canada, you may be saying this was not the case during the 2023 growing season. Across most areas for the growing season in Eastern Canada, we received 115 to 150 per cent more rain than average, according to Environment Canada.
By Richard Kamchen
Farmers could use relief from high interest rates, but aren’t likely to get any soon, leaving them to mitigate the challenges themselves.
In a capital-intensive sector like farming, higher interest rates increase borrowing and production costs, and can influence buying decisions for machinery and equipment, inputs, and land.
By Colleen Halpenny & Emily Croft
Ontario has 114 provincially licensed abattoirs that specialize in the slaughter of food animals and play a key role in the value chain of livestock production.
This number, according to Franco Naccarato, executive director of Meat & Poultry Ontario, is just keeping up with the demand from producers.
“From 1999 to 2020, our sector lost 54 per cent of the abattoirs which previously were able to process and provide for that local demand.
By Emily Croft
Ray Robertson’s passion for growing his local community in Grey County has led to a long career with international impacts.
His leadership and commitment to agriculture has been recognized, as Ray was inducted into the Ontario Agricultural Hall of Fame in June, and will be celebrated at the national level at the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Nov. 4 in Charlottetown, P.E.I.
By Emily Croft
With concerns for soil health, many producers look for alternatives to conventional tillage. Strip tillage offers Ontario crop growers an interesting option that sits in-between conventional and no-till systems.
By Colleen Halpenny
Historically, fall harvest was never truly considered complete until the moldboard plow had passed through the fields.
These days, best management practices to minimize erosion, retain soil moisture, and ensure maximum organic matter is returned to the soil have created a positive shift toward minimum and no-till applications. However, some producers are still skeptical about leaving lots of residue on the field.
By Paul Hermans
If you were to ask my wife, she would tell you that I am addicted to the weather. Every day I will look at my weather app at least five to 10 times, especially during the hot hazy days of summer, checking to see who got rain, how much, and when we might get a nice shower to boost our crops.