By Alice McFarlane

Agriculture Roundup for Thursday March 10, 2022

Mar 10, 2022 | 9:43 AM

MELFORT, Sask. — The UN World Food Program is warning millions of people in the developing world and conflict zones are on the brink of starvation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The program reached out to Canada and other major wheat exporters to open their silos to urgently fill the shortage of wheat, which it warns could lead to millions going hungry in countries including Afghanistan, Yemen, and Sudan.

The World Food Program and many countries in the developing world, including Lebanon and Bangladesh, rely on Ukraine for their wheat supplies.

Chief economist at the Food Program Arif Husain said 789 million metric tonnes of its wheat last year came from Ukraine.

Canada’s Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau will attend an emergency meeting of G7 agriculture ministers tomorrow to discuss the impact of the Russian invasion on global food security.

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More funds are being directed to rural broadband in Alberta.

The federal government will provide $240 million to help expand internet service. This is being matched by the Alberta government bringing the total to $780 million.

Rural Municipalities of Alberta vice-president Kara Westerlund said broadband is critical for everything from rural education and economic development to agriculture.

The process has begun to review and prioritize hundreds of applications for rural internet projects under the federal Universal Broadband Fund.

The federal Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission set a goal in 2016 for all Canadians to have download speeds of 50 megabytes per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of 10 Mbps by 2030.

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has detected the presence of potato wart in a third field in Prince Edward Island.

The agency issued a statement this week saying the fungus was detected in a field near two other farms where it was initially found in October 2021.

Last November, the federal government banned the export of seed potatoes from P.E.I., and the continental United States market has been closed to all Island potatoes ever since.

The federal agency said the latest find was not a surprise, considering it’s common to detect potato wart in nearby fields during an investigation.

The farm in question does not produce table stock potatoes and does not export to Puerto Rico.

When exports to Puerto Rico resumed last month, Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said she was optimistic shipments to the U.S. mainland could resume within a couple of weeks.

The minister later said a decision from the United States wasn’t expected until the end of this month.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @farmnewsNOW