Jack Dawes listens as Germain Lehoux talks about his dairy farm during a Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation tour in Quebec in 2017. Lehoux’s daughter, Marie-Eve Lehoux, looks on in the background.

Comment: Where do you want to go?

There is no shortage of problems and issues to try to untangle, but focusing exclusively on obstacles isn’t helpful. We also need to set our sights on the direction we want to go. “Don’t look at the ground, or that’s where you’ll end up,” goes the old equestrian adage. We can chart a course by […] Read more

Alexander cuts the Gordian Knot, painting by Berthelemy ca. 1767.

Comment: Wicked problems and Gordian knots

Charlie Gracey references the Gordian knot in his article on the producer’s share of the retail dollar in our August issue of Canadian Cattlemen, and I’ve been thinking about it since I first read it.  The Gordian knot has its origins in an ancient Greek legend. An oracle predicted that the next man to drive […] Read more



blue green algae

Pond scum: blue-green algae and cattle

It’s a routine summer day of checking cattle, maybe repairing a bit of fence. Nothing too stressful, at least until you see the dugout you’re using as a water source for your cattle, which has algae in it. Now what? The first question is whether it’s blue-green algae, which can release toxins harmful to cattle, […] Read more


We still haven’t reconciled the clash between economics and nature that Joni Mitchell sang about.

Comment: Are we going to save or pave paradise?

It was an odd feeling, sitting in the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) environmental committee meeting in Ottawa in March with Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi stuck in my head. Discussions around conserving forage and grasslands triggered the earworm, and lyrics about not knowing “what you’ve got, til it’s gone” seemed apt. Later, in the hallways […] Read more

CCA president Bob Lowe speaks at a press conference in Ottawa on March 21, 2022, calling for federal back-to-work legislation to end a work stoppage at Canadian Pacific Railway. (CPAC video screengrab via YouTube)

AUDIO: Pandemic woes push beef industry to collaborate

Bob Lowe reflects on his two-year term as president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, which began just as the country was locked down due to COVID.

Bob Lowe was elected president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) on March 13, 2020. Coincidentally, that was a Friday, and if you’re at all superstitious, you might see that as foreshadowing. By the next week, the country was in lockdown in an effort to slow COVID. Over the next two years, the beef industry […] Read more


Refugees from Ukraine wait at the Ukrainian-Slovakian border on March 4, 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine which began on February 24, 2022.

Comment: Agriculture and hope go hand in hand

It’s no coincidence that War and Famine ride together as part of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Humans have known for a long time that war breeds hunger, and hunger brings war, so it’s not surprising that knowledge is encoded in a major religious text such as the Bible. Of course, pestilence is also […] Read more

A cow and calf in the late winter.

Comment: Managing market risk

We don’t know what 2022 has in store for us — hopefully rain at the right time and good cattle prices all through the fall. But hoping is not planning, and to plan, you need good information. So what should producers be watching in the markets as the year progresses? I asked Brian Perillat, senior […] Read more



Geopolitically, it’s going be the “wild, woolly West until we get the WTO more fully functioning and that can take a lot of twists and turns,” said one member of a panel discussing trade at a recent conference.

Comment: Toiling in the mines for trade

Given everything that’s happening globally, it must take relentless optimism and determination to maintain existing trade relationships and broker new ones these days. That was my main impression as I watched a trade panel organized by the North American Association of Ag Journalists in late 2021. The panel comprised three trade veterans: Gregg Doud, who […] Read more