This article is a good rebuttal to those who think we should abandon industrial farming: The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals. The key point that Blake Hurst is making in this article is that that industrial farming is the most efficient mode of farming we’ve ever had. There is no comparing the productivity per acre [...]
Marc Trudelle from Quebec was our first speaker. His talk was on the measures Quebec hog producers have taken to ensure that their farms are sustainable. He had a clear definition of sustainable: “Sustainable development is defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet [...]
I found this Scientific American podcast interesting: How You Gonna Keep Flu Down on the Farm?: Pig Farms and Public Health. What I liked about this podcast is that it doesn’t make farmers out to be villains. If anything Helen Branswell seems to take a farm-friendly perspective. It’s a good overview of what the health [...]
Here are my notes from the 2011 Manitoba Soil Science Society Meeting. Due to bad weather and closed highways, I missed the second day of the meeting. H. Asgedom’s talk on Nitrogen Oxide Emissions from Urea and Dairy Manure compared nitrous oxide emissions from five treatments: control unamended, ESN, Solid Dairy manure, Urea, SuperUrea. Urea [...]
Terry Betker has a very interesting presentation on Farm Management Advisory Services – Making Informed Choices (unfortunately you have to register with the site to see this but registration is free). He makes a lot of good points in this presentation. Outside advisers are needed when businesses outgrow management. There comes a point when you [...]
The proceedings are available Manitoba Agronomists Conference 2010 Proceedings if you want the full text. Kim McConnell of Adfarm opened up with a very broad spanning talk on Meeting Customer Needs in a Changing World. He talked about how the farm world is changing with consolidation – fewer, bigger customers means that it’s vital to [...]
I haven’t been updating this blog in a while because things have been very busy. I plan to have a post up after the Agronomists Conference in December.
This talk shows many of the ways in which you might interact with pig parts as you go through your day. There’s a lot more to pigs than just the other white meat!
I’ve been evaluating Quantum GIS lately. It looks as though it might work as a replacement for ArcView 3.2 for our purposes. Like any new program, there is a definite learning curve to be conquered. What I like: Free! This is a huge point as I don’t have much of a software budget Standard Windows [...]
With the wet weather, I’m in the office drawing fields instead of out there in them. I’m trying to improve the precision with which I draw fields from GPS tracks. I found that the free Arcview 3.2 extension Snap2Other is very helpful for fitting polygons to points. Here’s what I do to use it: Convert [...]
