Late-season snowstorm brings Prairies moisture

CNS Canada — After a winter spent waiting for snow, farmers across the southern Prairies were happy when the forecast was right and Western Canada received a late winter snowstorm. “We’ve heard moisture’s coming before and it doesn’t show up or it goes around us. So when it started snowing and it started adding up […] Read more


History: A Proposed New Method of Assessing Land for Tax Purposes

Reprinted from the January 1951
 issue of Canadian Cattlemen

A Proposed New Method of Assessing Land for Tax Purposes By T. H. Freeman, Director of Assessments for Saskatchewan ‘As a preface to the subject, it might be advisable to review very briefly the methods used in the past for assessing grazing land or what is technically described as Land Class 1. In 1939 a […] Read more

Pasture blends

Pasture blends

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

Most forage seed companies offer a pasture blend. Some customize their blend to the customer’s situation, but others use a least-cost formulation to produce a more attractively priced blend. Ideally, the blend should contain grasses and legumes that grow well together, are well adapted to the environment and soil type they will be seeded in, […] Read more



The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built in Norway in 2008, is the world’s largest secure seed storage site. (Matthias Heyde photo courtesy Government of Norway via Flickr)

Norway to upgrade ‘doomsday’ seed vault

Oslo | Reuters — Norway plans to spend 100 million Norwegian crowns (C$16.1 million) to upgrade a doomsday seed vault on an Arctic island built 10 years ago to protect the world’s food supplies, the government said on Friday. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is meant as a natural deep freeze to back up the […] Read more


Southern Ontario’s farmland prices have jumped, despite stagnant crop prices. (John Greig photo)

Southern Ontario median farmland price jumps in 2017

The threat of interest rate increases hasn’t dampened the prices southern Ontario farmers are paying for land. The annual Valco study of land values showed an increase in value of 9.76 per cent for farmland sold in 2017 over 2016. This increase is the largest since 2013. The median price for land in the surveyed […] Read more



Former 4-H Canada president Rob Black will be stepping down from his role as CEO of the Rural Ontario Institute to take his place in the Senate. (Photo courtesy ROI)

Rural Ontario leader appointed to Senate

A leader in Ontario’s agriculture and rural community is one of Canada’s newest senators. Rob Black, executive director of the Rural Ontario Institute and a former president of 4-H Canada, was named Thursday as one of two new senators from Ontario by Governor General Julie Payette. Why is this significant? It has been a long […] Read more

cattle on a pasture

Grass guys developing a forage carbon offset protocol

Forages: News Roundup from the February 2018 issue of Canadian Cattlemen

Cedric MacLeod considers carbon sequestration through forages and grasslands and the soils they grow in as a long overdue, up-until-now-grossly-underplayed chit that Canada’s grass and forage producers can finally throw down and claim proper ownership on. “Our members grow forage, many run livestock and most plant annual crops too,” says MacLeod, executive director of the […] Read more