Business Tools

The Canadian Angus Association will receive $3.8M to increase Canadian cattle producers’ ability to make data-driven decisions based on genomics to economically benefit their commercial livestock operations. The investment will be used to develop a genetic selection tool to equip producers with breeding data to select the best replacement heifers to improve their herds. Using…

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has announced that the interest-free limit of the Advance Payments Program has been set at $250,000 for the 2024 program year. This is the portion of advances on which the Government of Canada pays the interest on behalf of producers. Under the program, producers would normally receive the first $100,000 interest-free,…

Both livestock and crop receipts experienced an increase from January to December 2023, according to Statistics Canada (StatsCan). Livestock receipts experienced a 9.8 per cent increase in 2023, reaching $37.3 billion, while total crop receipts saw a 2.0 per cent increase, reaching $54.9 billion compared to the previous year. The cattle industry accounted for over…

Pending the passing of Budget 2024, $125 million is set to be invested over the next five years for Alberta’s new Drought and Flood Protection Program. This program is designed to help vulnerable municipalities and Indigenous communities across the province develop the long-term infrastructure needed to improve their drought and flood resilience and adapt to…

No matter what goals you’ve set for your beef operation, the Feeder Associations of Alberta has timely, low-cost financing options to help your business thrive. Jake Wedman may have been raised on a mixed farming and dairy operation, but when it came time to build something of his own, the beef industry was calling his…

At a time when Canadian agriculture continues to struggle with a chronic worker shortage, new data from the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC) has found that by the year 2030, there will be more than 100,000 vacant jobs to fill in the industry.  This labour market supply and demand forecast is a study conducted by The…

Historical AgriStability analysis demonstrates that capturing full winter feed and pasture cost, along with removing feed inventory price swings during droughts, could significantly improve the responsiveness of the AgriStability program for Alberta’s cow-calf sector. A pilot study will be undertaken to determine the most appropriate program design under various winter-feeding practices. In early 2023, AFSC…

Elanco Canada – a subsidiary of a global animal health leader Elanco Animal Health – has announced the launch of a farm animal sustainability initiative, Leave it Better. Following its launch in the United States in 2022, Leave it Better will unite the scope of Elanco Canada’s sustainability work with pork, poultry, beef and dairy…

The 2023 Canada-Alberta Drought Livestock Assistance initiative is expanding eligibility to 23 new regions and extending the application deadline. Livestock producers in eligible regions who altered their usual grazing practices due to drought conditions for more than 21 days this season can apply for financial support to cover losses incurred to manage and maintain female…

Biosecurity hazards on beef operations are sometimes overlooked, however, the risk of introducing disease onto your farm is real and more common than you may think. Routine practices such as shared fence lines, buying in replacement breeding heifers or bulls, borrowing stock trailers or outsourcing farm work can bring unwanted diseases onto your farm. Even producers who consider…