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Government of Canada invests in increasing bison exports

Canada's bison producers deliver healthy, naturally grown products that are in demand here and around the world. Today, to kick off the International Bison Convention 2022, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, announced an investment of up to $133,611 over two years to support economic growth for Canada's bison industry.

Helping bison producers seize market opportunities for their high-quality products contributes to a healthy, sustainable economy. With funding under the AgriMarketing Program, the Canadian Bison Association will be provided with the necessary resources to increase its efforts to expand and grow market access in Europe and to increase exports of Canadian bison to the United States. This funding supports the delivery of the International Bison Convention 2022 as well as other engagement and advocacy activities.

The bison industry is an increasingly important contributor to the Canadian economy, with live bison and bison meat exports reaching nearly $90 million in 2021. Demand is growing as more consumers look to bison as a source of lean, nutrient-dense, naturally grown meat. Bison are also gaining favour among eco-conscious consumers as the livestock help balance and maintain a healthy ecosystem where they graze and interact.

Increasing bison exports translates into economic activity all along the value chain, including for the many rural communities where producers operate. As our economic recovery continues, the Government of Canada is supporting the bison industry with the resources it needs to reclaim important markets and increase exports to spur economic growth.

Source : Newswire.ca

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Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators