Food and Farming Canada

|About MCGA|Canola Growers|Teachers|Kids|News ...

Industrial Uses and Opportunities for Canadian Soybeans, a new brochure highlighting industrial market opportunities for Canadian soybeans, is now available. The goal of the 16-page resource, produced by Soy 20/20, is to generate awareness of the many new soy-based products and applications being...

In a society where less than two percent of the population farms, there’s a real knowledge gap when it comes to food. It exists on many levels – nutrition and preparation come to mind – but especially on the production and origins end. So it’s no surprise that one of the m...

When I came across a website that mentioned it would let me grow my own wheat online and follow it through right to my dinner plate, I have to admit I was intrigued. I went to www.howwheatworks.com and signed myself up so I could get started. Faced with several different wheat types I could plant...

They’re young, they’re smart and they’re passionate. And this past Saturday afternoon, they were strutting their stuff as finalists in the Canadian Young Speakers for Agriculture competition at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto.These six presenters spoke to an assemb...

Here’s a great blog post about modern agriculture and bridging the gap between farmers and consumers. It’s written by Australian journalist Pip Courtney of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the Aussie equivalent of the CBC here in Canada), whom I had the opportunity to meet whi...

We all eat but most of us likely give it little thought beyond worrying about calories or fat content. We certainly aren’t likely to spend a lot of time thinking about who grew that food and the work that someone somewhere put into producing it. But that’s the goal of the 2010 Faces o...

It’s harvest time in Ontario – a time of bounty and plenty for lovers of local food. But where Canadian agriculture is concerned, it’s not all about buying local and the 100-mile diet, even though everyone seems to be getting in on that action.It’s true that local food is growin...

It’s hard to imagine what it’s like to be at the centre of a media firestorm unless you’ve actually experienced it. For the staff at Alberta Pork and the communications professionals working with them, the spring of 2009 provided more first-hand experience than they could have ever wished for. Le...

Farmers can safely dispose of their obsolete pesticides, unused animal health products and used sharps at collection sites across Ontario this week.The CleanFARMS blitz program starts tomorrow and will run until October 22 as part of an Ontario government-supported Great Lakes Basin water quality...

I feel the need to get something off my chest this morning. It seems to be popular in the urban media at the moment to bash farmers, especially those who grow corn and soybeans. These horrible people – or so the theme goes – are ruining the environment by growing large volumes of thes...

A series of hiking trail signs highlighting environmental accomplishments by farmers are being unveiled today in the Greenbelt.The signs have been installed along popular hiking trails in the Greenbelt – an area of permanently protected farmland, forests, wetlands and greenspace in southern...

A bunch of us girls get together every once in a while for craft night. Now, normally, this has nothing to do with food or farming – other than we’re all farm girls and we usually eat food before crafting. But the last time we got together, my friend Cathy mentioned she was growing tomatoes [...]...

I spent the day in Saskatoon today with reporters and editors from the Western Producer. Once a year, they all gather together for a staff conference – and today, I was on the agenda to do an introduction to social media.I am generally quite intrigued by the endless possibilities posed by s...

Canada is a land built on the foundations of agriculture and the hard work of generations of immigrants and farmers. These are the people who came to what was the “New World” to lay the groundwork for the life, culture and society we enjoy here today. Around the globe today, our country is admire...

I think I could be newly addicted.This year, more than ever before, I’ve been focused on local foods and making a conscious effort to buy and consume more of them, especially Ontario fruits and vegetables. Not only are they good for me, but I believe it’s important to support our own, in this cas...

The relationship many of us have with food is a lot like one we would have with a spouse, family member or friend. It can make us feel joy and inspire great passions – but can also evoke feelings of sadness, disappointment or guilt. We interact with it every day of our lives on [...]

Tonight, I’m joining about 100 of my colleagues and heading west for the next few days – to Edmonton, Alberta for the annual Canadian Farm Writers Federation conference. Our hosts, the Alberta Farm Writers Association, have some wonderful farm tours and professional development sessio...

It’s modern, innovative and exciting – words we all try to associate with agriculture when we talk to the public about what we do and where our food comes from.In this case, the “it” is FarmzOnWheelz, a brand new mobile educational display that helps teenagers and their fa...

The Internet is a wonderful thing. It brings the world to our fingertips, regardless of where we might be. However, it also makes easier than ever before to spread rumours, misinformation and half-truths.And there’s a lot of that floating around out there – in both new and conventiona...

There’s always someone looking to make a buck off someone else’s misfortune. But in this case, I didn’t think it would be the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC). One of the agencies at the head of the global response to H1N1 influenza, the CDC is reported to be selling a toy v...

For anyone curious about food and farming, this is your season!Fall means harvest and along with it come a multitude of opportunities to visit farms, talk to farmers and see first hand how our food is produced. You can find events in your area by checking in with your local farmers’ market,...

It is really hard to find Ontario-grown garlic in our grocery stores. And yet there are farmers in our province that grow the pungent bulb – I know this because I’ve met some of them. I’ve even toured some farms.So what’s up with the mystery of the missing garlic in our su...

The word crisis is heard often at the moment. Unfortunately, it seems to be heard most often in conjunction with two other words: agriculture and farmers. In a country as wealthy and as entrenched in farming as ours, to me, there’s something fundamentally wrong with this picture.There’s the dire ...