File photo of Rabobank’s office building in Utrecht. (Rabobank.com)

Rabobank to offer Canadian farm-level lending

Dutch co-operative bank's Canadian arm to loan directly to farmers, starting on Prairies

Updated — A global financing firm operating at higher altitudes in Canada’s food and agrifood sector now plans to expand its business down to the farm and ranch level. The Canadian arm of Rabobank — an Amsterdam-based farmer co-operative lender, providing banking, leasing and real estate services in more than 38 countries — announced Tuesday […] Read more

Farmers face a number of uncontrollable factors that can lead to high rates of depression, anxiety, even suicide. (Eclipse_images/E+/Getty Images)

Free mental health training, workshops offered for farmers

Do More Ag Foundation expands programming available

Farmers seeking mental health support will have access to free training and community workshops for the fourth year in a row via the Do More Agriculture Foundation (DMAF) and Farm Credit Canada (FCC). Factors such as financial insecurity, uncontrollable weather and isolating working conditions contribute to high depression, anxiety and suicide rates among farmers, according […] Read more

Peepeekisis Cree Nation hosted Crown–Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller on Aug. 3, 2022. (@MarcMillerVM photo via Twitter)

Feds apologize for Saskatchewan farming colony scheme

Apology comes year after settlement with Peepeekisis Cree Nation

Just under a year after Peepeekisis Cree Nation’s settlement with the Canadian government over the File Hills Colony forced farming scheme, the federal government has made a formal apology. Operating from 1898 to 1954, the File Hills Colony scheme involved what the government today describes as the “involuntary relocation” of graduates from residential schools and […] Read more

File photo of farmland in Sierra Leone. (Belen B Massieu/iStock/Getty Images)

Sierra Leone passes new laws to boost landowners’ rights

Freetown | Reuters — Sierra Leone’s parliament on Monday passed two laws that lawyers say will help boost the rights of rural landowners and women against land grabs by big mining and agribusiness firms. The West African country has a history of sometimes deadly conflict between local communities and foreign companies that have cleared huge […] Read more

Christina Crowley-Arklie

Consumer relations could shape the future of agriculture and food

What is the biggest challenge facing Canadian agriculture? Will the sector play a role in creating the future or be forced to react to one that’s built by others? What will food of the future look like? These are the big-picture questions that Christina Crowley-Arklie believes agricultural groups should discuss. She thinks the Canadian agriculture […] Read more


Viktor and Sergiy Shipov say they’ll harvest a crop this year, despite the challenges from the war. (Photo: Ihor Pavliuk/Oleksandr)

Farming behind the lines: Growers in Ukraine plant amid hostilities close by

'We started the sowing campaign by removing rockets from the field'

Viktor and Sergiy Shipov are used to adversity. Viktor established a farming company in southern Ukraine 20 years ago, in the Mykolaiv Oblast, where hellish heat and lack of rainfall can make the land look like the Sahara Desert with yellow dunes. This is a corner of the classic Ukrainian steppe, where rainfall is very […] Read more

Parts are already in short supply in Ukraine, and farmers are stockpiling and lending and borrowing amongst themselves. (Ihor Pavliuk photo)

Farming behind the lines in Ukraine

A Ukrainian agriculture journalist chronicles the challenges of sowing a crop during wartime

Ukrainians will farm their land, even in the face of war. In the Kherson area of southern Ukraine, where war rages and the city of Kherson is seen by the Russian invaders as strategic, a column set out on Monday. This was a column of tractors, under the flag of Ukraine. In it were farmers […] Read more

(Andreus/iStock/Getty Images)

Farm cybersecurity campaign seeks farmer input

CSKA online survey open until Feb. 18

Canadian farmers are being asked for their input on a federally-backed project to assess and improve cybersecurity in Canada’s ag sector. The Community Safety Knowledge Alliance, the lead organization on the Cyber Security Capacity in Canadian Agriculture project, has put up a voluntary online survey for farm operators, running until Feb. 18, “to look at […] Read more


Although agriculture is exempt from most employment standard rules, any increase in the minimum wage will eventually affect farmers' bottom line.

Farmers eye potential impacts from minimum wage hike

Despite agricultural exemptions, pay rates are typically affected

The significant increase to minimum wage recently announced by the provincial government garnered a muted, and in some cases, positive response from Ontario’s agricultural sector. This is a contrast to reaction from the sector in 2018, when the last major increase occurred. According to one of the loudest voices of dissent from 2018, Hamilton-area broccoli […] Read more

ontario autumn

Saving the mid-sized farm

Policy paper suggests altering institutions to offset cost burdens could support smaller farms without harming larger ones

Statistics Canada data indicates the number of mid-sized farms continues to decrease while comparatively large and very large farms gain in size and number. According to analysts at the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, a Guelph-based agricultural economics think-tank, the trend poses risks for the sector as a whole. The question is: what could stop the […] Read more