Real Agriculture
The World Trade Organization’s ruling on the country of origin labelling (COOL) legislation brought some small sense of victory to the Canadian beef industry. The excitement over that victory was short-lived however as producers realized that any tangible results stemming from that ruling would be a long way off. The potential for an appeal by [...]
The continuing saga of the financial crisis in Europe and in particular Greece is leaving a lot of analysts on the edge of their seats. The latest development being the 170 billion dollar Greek bailout deal presented Tuesday. The failure of that deal could have far-reaching implications. But just how much could Europe’s problems spill [...]
When we talk about feeding a growing world population, part of the solution involves maximizing the potential of all of the worlds existing agricultural land base. Certain countries in the world are looked upon to be the future of agricultural production. This list of “up and coming” nations includes Ukraine. Vast tracks of land with [...]
James S Peck owns and operates PX Farms Ltd. in Cambridge, England. The operation is close to 6000 acres and is comprised of a combination of contracted acres and his own family farm. The farm is extremely large for the U.K. and the growth it has seen since PX Farms was established in 2003 has [...]
The pulse industry across Canada is looking at an aggressive growth strategy in the coming years. The Saskatchewan Pulse Growers Association in particular have targeted a major expansion in acres by 2025 and they’re not the only province looking to grow. Alberta as well has some very aggressive thoughts on what may happens to pulse [...]
This years NCBA conference saw a more positive outlook from producers and industry members than there has been for a while. That outlook comes with some qualifiers as well as some questions that have to be answered as we look ahead to the rest of 2012. I spoke to Duane Lenz of CattleFax about the [...]
If you’re in the cattle feeding business, you know how tight margins are. With feed costs continuing to be expensive and feeder prices looking toward potential record highs this year, the importance of improving feed efficiency becomes magnified. Watching cattle struggle through wet pens to get to that feed in the spring can be hard [...]
Assessing risk is a crucial part of any producer’s pest control strategy. If you don’t know what to look for or how to look for it, you are setting yourself up for some potentially costly problems. That risk assessment starts with a good knowledge of the previous year including hotspots for activity, and overall movement [...]
By all standards it appears that FarmTech 2012 was an incredible success. The event, which ran from January 24th to the 26th was sold out, with producers and industry members gathering to hear from an wide array of speakers who ran the gamut from industry expert to army general to comedian. Another reason this years [...]
If a person were to describe the overall mood of this year’s NCBA Conference, it would be descibed as price bullish and margin bearish. As we have mentioned before, it’s a cautious optimism for feeders and packers, which comes with a recognition of the volatility that producers have gone through and are also facing in the future. [...]
