Working with many ag leaders across the country, the Ottawa-based president of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association has been stick handling myriad issues.

Nutrients and micro-nutrients have a huge role to play in keeping potato plants healthy through the season. A strong plant is in a better position to ward off diseases and pests, and stand up to extreme  weather conditions.

The state of Integrated Pest Management keeps evolving with new equipment and techniques for identifying diseases and pests.

Karen Davidson, editor of The Grower, speaks with Kevin Howe, Howe Family Farm Market near Aylmer, Ontario.

Darci Vetter, former chief agricultural negotiator for the U.S. Trade Representative, has had a front-row seat to trade relations around the world.

Just like the industry itself, Davis Yung brings a dynamic leadership style to the Canadian Produce Marketing Association. Its diverse membership is comprised of every segment of the produce industry supply chain which is responsible for 90 per cent of the fresh fruit and vegetable sales in Canada. 

The Virtual New Product Showcase honours four product categories: the organic product award, packaging innovation award, best snackable product and best new product award. The Little Potato Company’s Easy Sides won best new product. 

Pork and chicken producer Amy Cronin has been appointed chair of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission for a two-year term. 

Seasoned advertising veteran Stephanie Swatkow is the new director of marketing for greenhouse grower Nature Fresh Farms. 

In the May issue of The Grower, columnist Owen Roberts put forward a perspective that’s not often heard in the mainstream media. And that’s the view that  foreign workers are professionals. CBC Radio contacted him for a series of cross-Canada interviews on April 28.   

Seasonal agricultural workers such as Jamaican Willy Green are crucial to the 2020 growing season. The federal government is providing exemptions to the travel ban however logistics are still to be announced. 

Dr. Mary Ruth McDonald has mentored dozens of students as professor of plant agriculture, University of Guelph. Equally at home in the field, she’s working with Master’s student Alexandra Dacey, documenting carrot weevil found in carrot trials at the Muck Crops Research Station in Bradford, Ontario. 

Seedless watermelon is only one of the specialties carried at Howe Family Farm Market near Aylmer, Ontario. Kevin Howe says ground cherries and canary melons also pique the interest of consumers. The on-farm market has been so successful that the family has opened another location south of London Ontario. 

Bill George Jr. and his son Will have tasted the promise of Icewine exports to China. With geopolitical tensions in 2019, the risks of diversifying into markets abroad have been amplified. It’s too early to know if the recent U.S-China deal will help or hinder.    

Fourth-generation grower Kyle Horlings is questioning the way things have always been done. Since 2015, he’s taken about 10 acres of carrots and onions out of production every year for restorative cover plantings. His experiments near King, Ontario garnered him the Healthy Soil Award from the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority in November.