By Jennifer Blair and Glenn Cheater Glacier FarmMedia staff A surge in the number of organic crop producers in Alberta has boosted organic production on the Prairies to a level not seen since the 2008 financial crisis. That’s a key highlight of a new report from the Prairie Organic Grain Initiative, an alliance of Organic […]
By Ashley Robinson OrganicBiz staff While organic farmers in Western Canada are praying for rain, their counterparts in Ontario are praying for the land to dry out. “It’s kind of been stop and go… when things get just close enough to being dry we get more moisture,” said Andrew St. Jean, of Beechwood Organics in […]
By Brenda Tjaden OrganicBiz contributor The logistics costs involved in getting organic grain from farms to markets are astronomical. Conventional grain crops grown in Western Canada can usually be trucked to an elevator within an hour of the farm. Organic crops can easily spend eight to 12 hours in a truck before they find a […]
By Brenda Tjaden OrganicBiz contributor Lots of growers have been through the unpleasant experience of having a load of grain rejected on delivery. Generally, the cause is something in the environment that couldn’t be controlled. Gathering a representative sample can help a lot, but it is far from a perfect science. Despite best efforts and […]
By Brenda Tjaden OrganicBiz contributor The substance of grain marketing is the same for all farmers — to generate income. The quality of the decision, to sell today or to wait, ends up having a big impact on the farm’s revenue stream, profitability, future potential, and the owners’ quality of life. It’s no different for […]
There are 1.4 million certified acres and 1,499 organic operations across the three Prairie provinces By Lorraine Stevenson OrganicBiz staff Western Canadian organic acreage appears to be stuck in neutral. Since 2014 the acreage has hovered around 1.4 million acres across the three Prairie provinces, according to Jill Guerra, research and special projects co-ordinator with […]
OrganicBiz staff Montana Specialty Mills, LLC is building a new $20 million, 20-acre processing center in Great Falls that will feature grain processing equipment dedicated to making non-bioengineered/non-GMO products and organic oilseeds. The facility should be completed by the fall of 2018. The company says it chose to build the facility in the Great Falls […]
Read more: Eyes on crops in Western Canada’s organic market
American Association for the Advancement of Science – In two of the first large-scale, field-realistic studies to date, researchers in Europe and Canada have affirmed what’s been hypothesized about neonicotinoids — that prolonged exposure to these insecticides negatively affects bees. Their results reveal that local environment and species influence the impact of these widely used […]
Commodity News Service Canada – Saskatchewan has lost its position as the province in Canada with the most organic farms — to Quebec. According to Statistics Canada’s latest release from the 2016 Census of Agriculture, Quebec overtook Saskatchewan with 1,268 farms in 2016, compared to 879 in Saskatchewan. From 2011-16, the number of organic operations […]
