Seeing this picture sent in by Dan Danford, AdFarm, makes me wish I was able to attend the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation meeting. This picture was actually taken prior to the CFWF meeting. Dan was kind though to send me a couple of pictures and let me know what’s going on with our brethren in the great white north. The …
Soldier Farmers
Here’s something you won’t see on the evening tv news. Soldier farmers helping rebuild the ag economy in Afghanistan. We’ve already seen this type of work being done in Iraq thanks to Paul McKellips. It looks like soldiers from several states are doing something similar to this in Afghanistan. Despite recent progress, Afghanistan remains a poor country. Its agriculture industry, …
MCOOL will take some time to sort out
Harry Siemens / Farmscape – North American pork producers, processors, and retailers continue to prepare for the introduction of the mandatory country of origin labeling which took affect officially on September 30, 2008. Saskatchewan Pork Development Board policy analyst Mark Ferguson believes U.S. processors and retailers will determine the impact of the new labelling requirements on Canadian pork producers. “Although …
Aquafinca Farms Fish in Honduras
I just received this story from Laura who visited Honduras recently and is back there now. Her trip was made possible by the Honduras Foundation for Investment and Export Development. Here’s a novel idea when running a business that manages more than a thousand employees: “We try to do basically everything to make them feel they are like partners not …
Helping The Chorti Maya
You may remember that Laura McNamara went to Honduras this summer and met with the Chorti Maya and a man who is working to help them increase their agricultural production, Billy Collins. There is a group of indigenous people in Honduras that live off an average of $300 a year… less than one dollar a day. At least two months …
Slovenia Ag Group
While we were in Slovenia at the IFAJ Congress one of our hosts was Ciril Smrkolj who is President of the Slovenia Agriculture and Forestry Chamber, a primary ag group in the country. I spoke with him at our closing dinner. He’s very much a pro-agriculture kind of guy. He says that his organization does work on promotion and marketing. …
Food and Farming Canada
The traveling agriblogger is now resting comfortably in Chicago O’Hare, waiting on the next flight. So far, so good this morning. You can see what the sunrise looked like outside my plane in Columbus, OH this morning using this link. While doing some more email work I noticed that Lilian Schaer, Food and Farming Canada, is now following me on …
Franz Fischler Concludes The Congress
I like the way Fran Fischler, President of the IFAJ Congress 2008, started his remarks at the end of the event. “Everything has already been said but not by everybody.” He then proceeded to thank all the people who worked to make this Congress a reality, including all the sponsors. He pointed out how different farming is around the world. …
Slovenia Minister of Agriculture
Greeting the IFAJ Congress at our first dinner in Portoroz was the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food, Iztok Jarc. He had a challenge because just prior to our dinner the weather changed completely and we had a drenching lightning storm. It forced the restaurant to make some major adjustments to the settings but finally we got everyone under cover …