Pasture sage on a sandy hillside near Olds, Alta. There’s movement to create voluntary markets for environmental services provided by ranchers, but attempts to introduce mandatory environmental accounting standards worry industry leaders.

The drive to monetize environmental sustainability

While some are moving to create voluntary environmental goods and services markets, moves to bring in environmental accounting standards worry many in the industry

Does the push to link environmental sustainability to commerce present opportunities or risks to Canada’s beef producers? The answer, it seems, is: it depends. On the one hand, there is a grassroots movement to reward producers who are voluntarily providing ecosystem services. Ecosystem services include a variety of things: provisioning services (for example, flow of […] Read more



Mature winter wheat. (Allan Dawson photo)

Manitoba’s crops continue to hold up 

Hay yields generally below average; pasture conditions were deteriorating due to dryness

MarketsFarm – Timely rains in Manitoba have kept the province’s crops in relatively good shape, according to the latest crop report. Manitoba Agriculture said precipitation as of Aug. 1 amounted to as much as 73 millimeters around Zhoda in the southeast to 13 mm at The Pas in the north. Although several locales throughout the […] Read more



(Geralyn Wichers photo)

Weather outlook not great for Prairie crops

U.S. northern Plains in a similar boat

MarketsFarm — Just when crops across the Canadian Prairies need rain, the outlook to the end of July according to Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. pointed to conditions getting hotter and drier. “It does not look really good at the moment. We are going to see below normal rainfall and warmer than normal temperatures […] Read more

Making the most of available forage

Making the most of available forage

Start the grazing season with a plan and lower cost of production over time

Developing a grazing plan is an important first step to ensure effective grazing management on an operation, and it can help save a producer on cost of production in the long run. A grazing plan that matches animal numbers to predicted forage yields should be made before turn out. Several key steps should be included: setting objectives […] Read more


When we think about reducing overhead, we often see we can get along with less equipment or fewer horses, but we are emotionally attached, and it becomes very difficult.

The essentials for profitable ranching: Part two

Burke Teichert discusses the remaining three essentials, as he sees them

In my last article I introduced the “five essentials” for profitable ranching and discussed the first two. The five essentials are: We will now continue. Planning and decision-making tools Acquire and use a good set of planning and decision-making tools. Today’s computers and cell phones make this job quite easy. We need accurate information to […] Read more

cryptosporidium parvum

Cryptosporidium: A nightmare in the making

Vet Advice with Dr. Ron Clarke

I turned on the TV a week ago to watch what’s going on south of the border. After taking in the political news, the next channel I turned to relayed the sad story of a young couple with around 300 cows and a horrible outbreak of cryptosporidiosis during their calving season, the treatment nightmare of […] Read more


The Judys run between 350 and 500 head of South Poll on their farm near Rucker, Missouri.

Rotating to managed grazing

Rancher Greg Judy of Missouri explains why he switched from continuous to rotational grazing

Greg Judy’s farm in Rucker, Missouri, sounds picturesque: mild winters, flat land broken by rolling hills, dotted by livestock. “It’s not row cropland,” Judy says, speaking at the Western Canadian Conference on Soil Health and Grazing last winter. “It’s just basically rolling hills, very thin topsoil. And so what we’re dealing with there, folks, is […] Read more

Forecast probability of temperatures above, below and/or near normal for the period from July through September 2023, based on three equiprobable categories from 1991-2020 climatology. (Weather.gc.ca)

Dry, hot Canadian summer expected

Normal precip expected for Ontario, Quebec

MarketsFarm — Warmer-than-normal temperatures are expected across all of Canada for the next three months, with average precipitation in most of the agricultural areas of the Prairies. That’s according to the latest long-range seasonal forecast from Environment Canada, released Friday. The government department calls for a 50-70 per cent chance of above-normal temperatures from July […] Read more