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As highlighted in the articles Looking Back and Here and Now, Alberta’s agriculture sector is constantly adapting and innovating to meet new challenges. By leveraging emerging technologies like genomics, crop and livestock producers have improved yield and disease resilience and have begun to tackle solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change. Alongside these technological advances are huge advances in information and big data.

Sabine Banniza’s accomplishments as a researcher are making waves as she envisions a country whose pea and lentil crops are resistant to root rot.

Many generations of flea beetles have been exposed to neonicotinoids in Western Canada over the last two decades.

A project to increase the use of data in cow-calf operation decision-making has brought together organizations and researchers from across the sector.

The Whole Sounder Trapping Incentive Program ended March 31, 2024 bringing the modified bounty component of the program to a close (the Ear Bounty Program ended March 31, 2023). For farmers experiencing wild boar damage to their fields, wild boar are included in the AFSC Wildlife Damage Compensation Program.

Field tests across the Prairies have identified a new star in the world of forage barley: AB Maximizer.

Recent reports coming out of the U.S. of avian influenza virus (H5N1) being found in cattle has been garnering attention. First noted in mid-March as a “mystery illness” when a handful of dairy farms saw a drop in milk production and low appetite amongst some of their herd, traction on this story has grown as additional states began reporting cases.

Sometimes experiments succeed not because they go as expected but because they defy expectations. And, sometimes, the results are delicious. This was the case in 2022, when a project at NAIT’s Applied Research Centre for Culinary Innovation to flavour plant-based meat left researchers wanting. The team inoculated Alberta-grown pulses – legumes and beans – with a fungus called koji to make miso, a highly versatile ingredient traditionally made from soy.

Using plasma — the stuff of outer space — University of Alberta researchers have found an effective way to decontaminate grain tainted by mould, and also boost seed germination.

OFCAF supports adopting beneficial management practices (BMPs) that reduce greenhouse gas emissions while fostering economic and environmental sustainability. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) funds the program as part of the Government of Canada’s Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund.