One of my goals in posting to AgWired.Com is to improve relations by helping us better understand each other.

With farmers in the United States and Canada producing more food than we can collectively eat, exports and trade agreements help feed the system. In fact, those trade agreements are necessary for the survival of farmers, particularly in Canada.

Researchers at the University of Manitoba are confident sophisticated computer modeling will help ensure the emissions from biomass fuelled heating systems meet acceptable environmental standards. The two-stage greenhouse gas displacement system, developed by Vidir Biomass Systems, uses large straw bales as fuel and relies on primary combustion followed by secondary combustion to get a complete burn.

Randy Tkachyk is a beef producer in southeast Manitoba who wasn’t sure what to when BSE shut the US border in May of 2003. He started selling beef from his own cattle to friends, neighbours, relatives. Today he’s part owner of ManitobaBeef.Com.

The US based National Pork Producers Council is expressing its concern over a Health Canada proposal to restrict even more the use of Carbadox in Canada. Carbadox is an antibiotic used to protect against swine dysentery in the nursery phase.