Early Spring Slipping Away

Manitoba farmers are starting to feel the pressure from Mother Nature.

 

Bill Campbell is president of Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP).

 

"In early April there was that thought that it may be an early spring, things were coming along pretty good," he commented. "We've had a couple of snowfalls and the ground is frozen pretty good here now. We probably lost two weeks and maybe it won't take two weeks to get back to an opportunity and certain places will be a little ahead of others but I'd suggest we're a week to 10 days before we could travel on some fields once the frost gets out of the ground again."

 

Campbell says there's lots of field work to do once the wheels start turning.

 

"We have so many things to do in the spring of 2020. To get that seed bed back in shape and it's to get last year's crop out of the way and all of those issues and then we have very limited fertilizer applied. So there's a lot of challenges. We need a lot of help from Mother Nature and good weather."

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.