Agriculture

Driving home from work every day, past the crumbling Northern Breweries complex, Mike Oknianski would muse about Northern Ontario’s rich brewing history, dismayed that nothing was being done to preserve it.

After the turn of the last century, the provincial government set about creating a “New Ontario” by offering land and cash to populate the Great Northern Clay Belt with first-time farmers.

Abraham Frey's 450 free range hens live out their lives in a spacious barn, and run through green fields in the summer.

For two friends named Eric, food production wasn’t even on their radar until a few years ago when they alighted on the idea of shipping container farms.

Pino’s Get Fresh in Sault Ste. Marie is among the first grocery stores approved to carry beer as part of the province’s new alcohol sales strategy announced last spring.

FarmStart wants to get more new and young farmers into the North, and a pilot project is using training, peer mentorship and marketing to get them here.

Hearst distillers Marcel Rheault and Mireille Morin have more acclaim to add to their growing collection of accolades after participating in the 2015 China Wine & Spirits Awards (CWSA).

When Jeff Scharf first set up a prototype of his four-season greenhouse, he was mostly looking to test the performance of its envelope, and he planted a few seeds as an experiment. But he didn’t anticipate just how well it would work.

Operating in South River since 2012, Highlander has outgrown its existing facility and is undergoing a major expansion that will increase its production capacity and establish a training school for brewery technicians.

The mountainous slag piles at nickel miner Vale in Sudbury are becoming a favourite landing spot for one of nature’s most threatened species