Severe weather continues to barrage farms in Western Canada

Aug 05, 2016

Tornadoes swept through farms in Manitoba and Saskatchewan

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Farmers in Western Canada continue to deal with adverse weather that’s bringing heavy rain, hail and tornadoes to their fields and farmyards.

Near Disley, Saskatchewan, a tornado flattened Delwin and Reuban Hofer’s canola crop on Wednesday.

“(It) kept swirling and swirling till it was at the ground,” Reuban Hofer told CTV News. “Then it started picking up canola and trees."

Wednesday’s tornado comes shortly after another twister decimated a farmhouse near Melville, SK.

Another tornado ripped through Davidson, SK in July, destroying barns, trailers and other buildings.

In Manitoba, farmers had buildings and fields damaged by a tornado that swept through Glenboro almost without a trace.

“My husband heard it. It sounded like crumping paper,” Maureena McPhail told CBC. “When he looked out, the whole shed just blew to pieces and the tornado left.”

None of the McPhail’s 150 sheep were hurt during the storm.

A tornado also damaged Chad Berry’s property by snapping an antenna attached to his house, tilting his camper and lifting a barn from its foundation.

Footage of Wednesday's tornado in Manitoba.
Video: Chad Berry/Facebook
Chad was on the road at the time of the tornado and recorded some of the storm.

“There’s a small shed in behind,” Chad’s wife, Jackie, told CTV News. “It’s in the canola field about a quarter of a mile away.”

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.