Panic-Buying Top Food Story Of 2020

Jan 04, 2021

The number one food story of the year was the sudden panic-buying and unnecessary hauling of food that took place during the first wave of the pandemic.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a food professor at Dalhousie University.

"We feel that that phenomena has had an impact on people's behavior, but also will have an impact on policy," he said. "You're seeing more provinces investing more on controlled environment agriculture. They're looking at greenhouses, vertical farms, hydroponics, aquaponics. There's discussions all over the country on how to produce food all year round."

Charlebois notes 2021 is the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables and adds it's fitting that more focus will be placed on producing produce all year round domestically.

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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.