The latest University of Guelph survey of farmers’ mental health in Canada reveals some worrisome results. And even more so for women. The good news is that it shines a light on the struggles of these very essential workers. Image: https://ontario.cmha.ca/intheknow
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Self-driving cars get a lot of media attention, but the technology’s been available in tractors for about 20 years. It’s allowed farmers sitting in the cab to turn their attention to other work. Now, John Deere has announced the industry’s first fully-autonomous tractor. Photo: Deere.com
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Farmers enjoy a high ranking in public trust polls, but they could be mistakenly blamed for rising food costs. It’s true that crop prices have been yielding better returns, but skyrocketing fertilizer costs take a big bite out of their profits – causing some farmers to think twice about which crops they can afford to plant.
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In a rare piece of good news last Friday, the Ukrainian agriculture ministry bumped up its estimate of spring crop planting from 13.4 million to 14 million hectares.
But it’s still a drop in the food bucket for more than 800 million people around the world suffering chronic food insecurity, and forecast to worsen this year. Image: AFP, FAO, USDA.
A recent survey of Canadian consumers shows their overwhelming support for food grown or produced in this country. But the issue of food prices is growing, with eight in 10 saying that hunger and food insecurity is a serious problem for many Canadians.
Photo: ctvnews.ca
Owen Roberts is a faculty member in the Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications program at the University of Illinois. As an agricultural journalist, he is the past president of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists and a lifetime achievement award recipient from the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation. His programs and research papers have been recognized nationally and internationally through awards from the Journal of Applied Communications, the National Agri-Marketing Association, the Association for Communications Excellence, and others.