MELFORT, Sask. – The governments of Saskatchewan and Alberta want to get an insecticide used by some farmers re-approved by Ottawa.
The federal Pest Management Regulatory Agency recently altered the approved uses for lambda-cyhalothrin, a pesticide used to control grasshoppers and flea beetles.
The change means the chemical can no longer be used on any crop that could end up as livestock feed and as a result, the manufacturers have pulled it from Western Canada.
Both provinces said due to continued drought in some parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan, grasshoppers are again likely to be a significant concern in the coming growing season.
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An Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan panel has found an engineer in the province guilty of three counts of professional misconduct.
One of the complaints against Scott Gullacher pertains to the rural municipality of Clayton’s Dyck Memorial Bridge, which collapsed moments after it was opened on Sept. 14, 2018.
Another complaint related to five municipal bridges, one in each of the RMs of Scott, Caledonia and Mervin and two in the RM of Purdue.
Due to the panel’s findings, Gullacher is prohibited from practising engineering in Saskatchewan as an interim order until a final decision on his conduct comes next month.
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As part of its ongoing partnership, the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) announced the inauguration of an agricultural technology centre at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) in Gazipur, Bangladesh.
This marks another milestone in the partnership’s goal of delivering sustainable food security through programs in Bangladesh focused on enhancing farmer incomes and addressing the effects of climate change.
The ag-tech centre will offer programs to enhance crop breeding and plant improvement, soil health and quality, improve soil water retention, and increase data management and analytics.
This includes another specific area of concern, post-harvest food handling and processing.
Bangladesh has chronic food security challenges that are increasing due to a rapidly growing population, climate-induced stress like salinity intrusion, drought and heat, loss of agricultural land because of rapid urbanization, and post-harvest loss.
The technical expertise comes from the Global Institute for Water Security, the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre, USask colleges, the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute, and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC).
The inauguration of the Bangabandhu-Pierre Elliott Trudeau Agriculture Technology Centre was announced on Feb. 23.
Led by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau at the time, Canada was one of the first countries to recognize Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. The name of the ag-tech centre reflects this legacy.
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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com
On Twitter: @farmnewsNOW
