Celebrating Ontario Agriculture Week

Oct 09, 2023

Guelph - Ontario Pork is proud to join commodity organizations across the province to celebrate Ontario Agriculture Week, which runs October 2 to 8.

This week marks an important acknowledgment of the continued contributions made by the agriculture community.

Ontario Pork is proud to represent 997 pork farmers who work diligently to provide a nutritious and protein-rich food source for millions of people here at home and around the world.

Ontario Agriculture week is dedicated to:

Celebrating the abundance of food Ontario farmers produce.
Recognizing everyone the industry employs and the communities supported by agriculture, and
Highlighting the economic output the agriculture industry delivers for the province.

The Ontario pork industry alone contributes over $1.35 billion to the province’s GDP while employing nearly 20,000 full-time equivalent jobs. Multiple that across the other agriculture commodities and it's evident that farmers are not only feeding our province, but they are also a driving force behind a strong and functioning economy.

This week we take time to celebrate Ontario's rich agriculture heritage which has paved the way for the success of future generations.

Source : Ontario Pork

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.