The second Prairie Organics Conference and Trade Show will reprise its successful 2016 format of pairing leading edge science with the best organic farmers in Canada. With 26,000 square feet of exhibit space, the free trade show features its own Ag Innovation Stage, the largest organic trade show in western Canada and free customized meetings for buyers and growers of organic grain. Below are some of the highlights from the conference stream. Gillian Flies and Brent Preston Building a Profitable Organic Vegetable Enterprise Brent and Gillian share valuable lessons learned the hard way over a decade spent building their Ontario organic market garden into a profitable and environmentally viable farm enterprise. These lessons are detailed in Brent’s new book The New Farm: Our Ten Years on the Front Lines of the Good Food Revolution published by Random House in 2016. Dr. Jonathan Lundgren Putting the Diversity back into Organic Jonathan Lundgren is an insect ecologist from South Dakota. Jonathan’s talk will help farmers to better understand the role of insects in ecosystem functioning and how they can benefit the Whole Farm. Jay Fuhrer What’s on your Landscape? Jay is a Conservationist with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Bismarck, North Dakota. He will cover foundation principles to restore and maintain life in the soil, including resource concerns such as erosion, salinity, plant and animal diversity, carbon and water quality. Ian Cushon, Loic Dewavrin and Steven Snider Producer Panel: Managing Perennial Weeds Long time organic producers from Saskatchewan, Quebec and Alberta will share what they have learned over the years about how to manage perennial weeds in an organic farming system. Dr. Martin Entz and Ryan Boyd Integrating Crops and Livestock for Optimal Production Martin is one of Canada’s leading researchers with an organic and natural systems focus. He runs Canada’s longest running organic-conventional cropping system trial. Ryan is a young farmer from Rapid City, Manitoba who is putting leading edge thinking on crop-livestock integration into action. The conference and trade show will take place in the Keystone Centre in Brandon. Visit www.prairieorganics.org for the complete program and to register.

Just like any other place in the world, online slots are hugely popular in Canada too. In fact, there are hardly any casino players who don’t love playing these amazingly entertaining casino games. It’s not without any reason that slots are widely considered as the most popular of all casino games, both at brick-and-mortar establishments as well as online casinos. Go through any of the online slots Canada reviews from time to time, and you’d hardly hear anything negative about them. Let’s look at the top 5 reasons why online slots are so popular in Canada and far surpass sports betting and other types of gambling: Even small deposits can deliver huge wins The great thing about online slots is that you don’t need to invest hefty sums to win big. Some of the biggest online slot jackpots have been won by making tiny deposits. Although it might seem that the odds are stacked against you, don’t forget that the more is the number of people who play these online slots, the bigger their jackpot amount becomes. Hence, with the lady luck on your side, you could potentially win life changing sums! You don’t need to be a scientist! Unlike as in case of table games that require a certain degree of skill and knowledge, there is hardly any effort involved in winning online slot games. There is no such thing as an online slots strategy. All you need to do is press some buttons and if it’s your day, you could win wads of cash. Play at your own pace A good number of online and off-line casino games make it mandatory for you to make quick yet well-thought-out decisions, implying that you face a lot of pressure while playing them. Online slots are pretty different as you can play them as per your convenience. You have the option of playing the simplest kinds – the 3 row and 5 reel slots, or you can play slightly more complicated kinds - with around 30 pay lines. You are also allowed to try a good number of these online slots for free, before playing them with real money. Valuable me-time Most of the times when you’d play such online slots, you’d be alone, yet have a great time! As you would not be competing against anyone (as is the case of casino table games), you’d be able to play at ease and get valuable me-time. There will be no one pressuring you to make instant decisions and your fate would be totally in your own hands! Great fun! Any time you feel that you have had a bad day at work, you could switch everything off and let off some steam by playing these online slots! These games serve as the perfect means to not only take your mind off your current troubles, but also give you a chance to transform a bad day into a highly profitable one! Furthermore, as online gambling is still a grey area in Canada, you’d most likely not find yourself in any kind of legal trouble.  

This year the Brandon University Chinese Students and Scholars Association (BUCSSA) will be hosting the 2018 Chinese New Year celebration on Feb.17th in the Westman Manitoba Centennial Auditorium. It will be a great chance to learn more about Chinese culture, and enjoy the Chinese New Year together. They are expecting several hundred people to attend the event which includes performances and a Chinese dinner. Local Chinese talent will provide the performances and most of them are Chinese students from BU. Also, they will have several prize draws during the celebration.  The entire evening will be a great opportunity to experience the folk customs. The 2018 Chinese New Year falls on Feb. 16 and it is the Year of the Dog according to the Chinese Zodiac.  Chinese New Year, also called Spring Festival, has more than 4,000 years of history. It is the grandest and the most important annual event for Chinese people. The Brandon University Chinese Students and Scholars Association (BUCSSA) is a non-political, non-religious, and non-profit organization of Chinese students and scholars studying and working in Brandon and is officially registered in BUSU since 2004. Pre-sale tickets can be purchased at the following locations: Living Delight, Sushi Hut, Neo Tea, and Princess Grocery for only $10. Tickets at the door will be $15, and children under 6 will be free. Dinner stats at 5pm and the performances start at 7pm.

Third-year Brandon University students are enjoying a bit of the brisk outdoors this week as they work on a class project with the help of Winnipeg artist, Chris Pancoe. Lisa Wood, Assistant Professor of Visual and Aboriginal Art at the University said that they are working in collaboration with Winter Garden and Pancoe to develop a unique snow carving. “Specifically, my 3D Design class has been prepping for making snow sculptures by thinking about making public art and sculpting maquettes in preparation for these snow forms,” said Wood. The project just got underway today and work will continue until Wednesday when they plan for it to be complete. The students are working on the corner of 18th Street and Princess Avenue. The sculpture is based on an abstract design created by one of the students. Pancoe looked at all the work and decided what would work best for a snow sculpture and for sculpting, especially for those who have never done it before. “We are really happy to have Chris here, he’s done a lot of work for Festival du Voyageur, he was part of the team that made Anish Kapoor’s warming hut called “Stackhouse” in Winnipeg last year and is a well-known ceramic based artist,” said Wood. We’ll be sure to snap a picture of the finished artwork and post it right here on bdnmb.ca. Good luck to the students in creating their art!

There has been tremendous growth in the online casino sector world over in the past one decade, and the Canadian market hasn’t remained untouched. The figures released by the Canadian Gaming Association revealed that the Canadian online gaming industry’s purchased services amounted to $ 14 billion, and the gross output was $ 31 billion for the year 2016. These numbers were projected to increase in the coming years. Constantly increasing popularity of mobile gaming and online casinos has certainly given a major boost to the Canadian online casino industry. If we talk about the best online casino Canada has to offer today, there’s not just one, but quite a substantial number of them that are giving popular land casinos like Sand Hills, a run for their money. Absence of centralised regulatory standards Canadian Government has so far taken a decentralised approach as far as gambling regulation is concerned. This has enabled every Canadian province or territory to determine its own laws at the state level. The province of Québec continues to be the biggest and longest-established iGaming hub in Canada. It was the first one to grant online gambling casino licenses to operators. Many other states are taking a cue from Québec, and are increasingly relaxing their existing gambling laws, to benefit from the investment opportunities offered by the iGaming industry. Rapidly catching on the action The territories of Manitoba, Alberta and Ontario are working overtime to relax their online gambling laws, to facilitate easy operations of online casinos from their areas. They’re well aware of the lost revenue to unauthorized iGaming; a major chunk of business is going to the regions outside of Canada. The Canadian online casino industry has been growing at such a pace that new brick-and-mortar casino projects are also being rejected amid concerns about their potential profitability, considering the fierce competition offered by the online market these days. A grey area There is plenty of uncertainty around the legalisation of Canadian online casinos, and this can prove to be a problem for the Canadian players. For instance, owing to non-centralised licensing and hazy laws, many innocent online players might find themselves inadvertently flouting the laws, having no protection in case anything goes wrong. Regardless, the only way is up It goes without saying that it’s only in the best interest of the Canadian government to clear a great deal of confusion that surrounds the online casino industry. As with anything associated with the Internet, it is only inevitable that the legislation would always lag a little behind the ground situation, as lawmakers normally struggle to keep pace with the emerging technologies. However, as the Canadian iGaming market continues to be neglected by the government agencies, despite being immensely lucrative, a good number of Canadian online casino players as well as operators still find themselves in legal grey areas, something that’s not doing anyone any favours. Whatever might happen, it cannot be denied that the Canadian online casino industry will only continue to grow in the future. The advancements in the virtual reality and mobile technology will be successfully incorporated in the online casino industry, and it’s highly likely that those virtual platforms would slowly and gradually replace the brick-and-mortar establishments.