The following is excerpted from an Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs news release. Read the entire release here: Ontario Enhancing Livestock Health, Welfare and Productivity.
The most sophisticated sustainable livestock production research centre in Canada officially opened today. At the Ontario Beef Research Centre, University of Guelph researchers will hone the latest technologies in health, welfare and production to benefit the province’s 6,800 beef farms and others across Canada.
The following is excerpted from an Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs news release. Read the entire release here: Ontario Supporting New Innovative Bioproduct Development.
The Ontario government is working to protect the environment by investing in agri-food research to develop eco-friendly innovations such as bioproducts and waste reduction and recycling technologies.
The Government of Ontario has announced a $1.8-million investment in University of Guelph agri-food research to help find ways to enhance soil health and water quality.
The following is excerpted from an Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs news release. Read the entire release here: Ontario to Improve Crop Production by Fighting Plant Diseases.
The University of Guelph as well as Ontario pork producers and consumers worldwide will benefit from a new research facility announced today by Ernie Hardeman Ontario’s minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs.
The new facility to be located at the Elora Research Station will use state-of-the-art technology to meet advanced training and research needs of the swine sector, representing more than 1,200 producers in the province.
The venture is a partnership among U of G, Ontario Pork and the Ontario government through the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario.
Could switchgrass be an alternative to hay for dairy cattle to decrease competition between humans and cattle for land use and improve soil health?
That’s what University of Guelph researcher Abigail Carpenter from the department of animal biosciences wants to know.
Researchers are starting to gather results at the new Elora Research Station – Dairy Facility, where advanced technology is helping University of Guelph scientists investigate animal health issues, such as nutrition, genomics, calf behaviour, welfare and overall cow health.
Professors David Kelton and Derek Haley from the department of population medicine have utilized Elora Dairy’s facilities since its doors opened in May 2015.
“Elora Dairy offers top-of-the-line, high-end technology that helps us do innovative work no one has done before,” Haley says.
A growing calf is a hungry calf, but feeding calves to appetite by hand is prohibitive from a labour point of view. Each calf would need to be fed roughly 10 times daily.
At the same time, there’s a growing emphasis on mimicking natural settings and accommodating animals’ natural behaviour on the farm. Consumers want products from animals that are humanely managed, so a balance must be reached between animals having quality life and economic and efficient production systems.
To maximize efficiency, profitability and sustainability, dairy producers need to find a solution to embryonic losses during pregnancy.
Professor Eduardo Ribeiro from the department of animal biosciences at the University of Guelph is researching causes of pregnancy losses in cattle to develop strategies that will ultimately improve pregnancy survival and reproductive efficiency in dairy herds. Ribeiro hopes to develop practical applications to help producers by focusing on biological problems of cattle at the cellular level.