For Alberta's beef industry, it's been one bad break after another. "We just can't keep losing," Busby area cattle breeder Jill Careless says with a sigh. For farmers across northern and central Alberta who raise breeding cows to produce steers for slaughter, skyrocketing hay prices this year are the icing on a bitter cake that's been nearly a decade in the making.

Market and price are foremost in the minds of producers as they contemplate the fall roundup. The market watch can be nervy because market slippage can mean big dollars. Producers cannot control the base market. Only the market’s rise and fall are left for the producer. The market shifts can be muted with contracts and other selling options, but the anticipation, the good and bad, generally remains somewhat raw.

Alberta Health Services has recorded a single case of drug resistant pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus.  The patient was being treated for laboratory confirmed pandemic (H1N1) 2009 infection. The resistance was identified from an additional sample that was taken in mid-August while the patient was being monitored and treated for another condition. Further isolate testing at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg confirmed this sample was oseltamivir-resistant.  Oseltamivir is an antiviral medication mainly used to treat individuals infected with influenza.