By Alice McFarlane

Agriculture Roundup for Tuesday December 7, 2021

Dec 7, 2021 | 11:35 AM

MELFORT, Sask. – The federal government is continuing its support of Canadian Foodgrains Bank with funding so the work of responding to food emergencies around the world can continue.

The grant is worth $75 million over three years and will be used for emergency response projects implemented through the 15 members agencies of Foodgrains Bank.

Clearwater, Man. farmer Jan McIntyre said she appreciated the approach of working with local partners and organizations already present in a country.

“Not only does this approach bring practical value, but it also respects and offers dignity to the people of the countries and communities we help,” she said.

Last year, the Foodgrains Bank provided $49 million of assistance for 989,000 people in 33 countries. The federal government has provided $699 million worth of emergency assistance through the Foodgrains Bank since 1983.

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A new study has found Ontario farmers are leaders when it comes to adopting the practice of cover cropping.

Of the 520 respondents that grew cover crops in 2020, 91 per cent stated they saw improvements in soil health, less soil erosion and there was an increase in soil organic matter.

More than three quarters of farms reported benefits within three years of adopting cover crops.

But respondents also said there were challenges in adopting cover crops. The most common challenges included poor cover crop establishment, the late harvest of a cash crop preventing cover crop planting, and the additional costs associated with growing a cover crop.

The 2020 Ontario Cover Crop Feedback project was developed to provide information to farmers, agronomists, researchers, policy makers, and government organizations that will play a role in the future of cover crops in Ontario.

The project was a voluntary online survey of Ontario farms, targeting both farms that did and did not grow cover crops during the 2020 growing season.

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Prince Edward Island potato producers are taking their fight to the federal government.

A truck carrying 6,000 bags of potatoes left Charlottetown yesterday heading to Ottawa as a way to share the impact of a two-week old trade issue.

Representatives from Island potato farms will join provincial government and industry leaders to hand out potatoes to the public. The group is hoping to bring more attention to their plight over the ongoing ban on exports of PEI potatoes to the U.S.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) suspended all seed potato exports out of P.E.I., and all potato movement from P.E.I. to the U.S., following a ministerial order Nov. 22 due to potato wart.

It is a soil-borne fungus that can lay dormant for decades. The wart poses no risk to human or animal health, but it does downgrade the potato crop and reduces marketability.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @farmnewsNOW