Beef farmers say they’re not much better off than pork farmers (who are losing at least $20 per animal) these days, and they’re asking Ottawa for help. Beef production never really recovered from the 2003 BSE disaster, and now bad times have become chronic. I write about the difficult situation in this week’s Urban Cowboy column in the Guelph Mercury.

Tough times aside for a moment, the beef sector was in its glory last week at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, when the Royal couple visited with Jennifer Gilchrist of Lucknow, the winner of the 2009 Queen’s Guineas (photo below). Jennifer’s brother Brad, a student in my agricultural communications class last year, won the competition in 2003. Congratulations to Jennifer and the Gilchrist family.

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