I admit it. I have backyard chickens. For a decade we’ve had about 10 chickens, give or take, on our farm that supply our family with as many eggs as we need. There’s no question that they are pets — and my family has made that clear to me as I have suggested it might […] Read more
Tag Archives editorial — page 7
Editorial: How far should backyard chicken biosecurity go?
Editorial: In praise of hay
The Ontario Forage Expo is one of my favourite farm events of the year. It’s outside, in the heat of the summer, it’s usually well attended and there’s lots of equipment to look at. Haybines, rakes, tedders, balers of all sorts and forage equipment are all working in the field at this event, which means […] Read more
Editorial: Markets, trade variables disrupt usual farm outlook
New layers of challenge keep being thrown over farmers trying to run their businesses in Ontario this spring. Wait, it actually started last fall, with a late and burdensome harvest, marked by unprecedented corn quality issues. High levels of DON in corn across the province, but concentrated in unlucky pockets, meant some farmers had to […] Read more
Editorial: Food, fibre…and fun?
We haven’t done a lot of cannabis coverage here at Farmtario, despite the massive public and investor interest in the sector. I’ve thought a lot about it and I expect the impact of cannabis production on mainstream agriculture will be peripheral at best – other than where it has sucked production facilities (especially greenhouses) away […] Read more
Editorial: Assumptions about rural are grating
I have no doubt that there’s a divide between rural and urban folks, and little doubt that the divide seems to be increasing. But I do take issue with people who try to generalize and simplify the reasons for it. The fact that there is a rural-urban divide pains me greatly. I have people I […] Read more
Editorial: We are one year old
Happy birthday to us! Thank you for the vast amount of support and encouragement we’ve received at Farmtario during our first year. We couldn’t have done it without our readers, advertisers and supporters. A bit more than a year ago, Farmtario’s parent company, Glacier FarmMedia had an audacious idea: Create a whole new media organization […] Read more
Editorial: U.S. ponders its dairy future
You can tell every five to 10 years that the American milk situation is getting particularly dire, when they start having more discussions about supply management. American dairy farms are in their fifth year of chronically low milk prices, which declined quickly in late 2014 from about $25 per hundredweight of milk to a range […] Read more
Editorial: A farm leadership foundation
I didn’t really connect with my Greig grandparents when I was young. To my young self, they lived in a tidy house in Listowel, with a lot of breakable knickknacks, but always lots of food. We usually had to dress up to visit on a weekend. Rambunctious play was discouraged. They came across to the […] Read more
Editorial: Could beef be the new butter?
Beef farmers have a right to feel a bit battered. They are being slammed by many attacks in the mainstream media, often the result of lazy journalism being used to fill large volume website and social media post deadlines. I see one of these pieces almost every day. It’s a popular, easy meme to propagate. […] Read more
Editorial: Tiptoeing through trade barriers increasingly complex
An American court recently approved a $1.5 billion settlement paid for by Syngenta that will send money to hundreds of thousands of farmers and others in the grain system who sold corn with the Agrisure Viptera trait before it was approved to send to China. The resulting furor in 2013, resulted in an impact on […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
