I’ve seen firsthand how Canadian chicken, egg and dairy farmers, who have the luxury of a quota system and controlled pricing, can put exceptional effort into food safety, animal housing and other welfare measures....
Read MoreLianne Appleby is doing a nice job editing Ontario Beef magazine, getting each edition off to a good start with insightful and entertaining editor’s notes. This month she describes Canadian farmers’ Internet uptake...
Read MoreAnimal agriculture is changing in Ontario’s Greenbelt, which was established to preserve farming. In my Urban Cowboy column in today’s Guelph Mercury, I discuss a new study by rural policy and planning Prof. Harry...
Read MoreEditor Claire Cowan at the Ontario Grain Farmer magazine rolled the dice with this month’s cover, and picked a winner…no sooner did her magazine hit the streets than it started snowing all over Ontario (and elsewhere...
Read MoreJunk food is a term that doesn’t exist in Prof. Rickey Yada’s vocabulary. But unhealthy diet does. So does single-serving portions. And baked, not fried. Yada, scientific director at the Advanced Foods and Materials...
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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.