Alberta Agriculture Deputy Minister, John Knapp, spoke to producers about how Alberta Agriculture is putting a strategy in place to reconnect with rural Alberta and help to enable success for members of the livestock value chain. Two examples that he gave were: Creating an irrigation department that focuses on improving the efficiency of water application… Read More

John Scott, President, Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, spoke on the grocery market this morning in Lethbridge Alberta at the Tiffin Conference. John emphasized that grocers are trying to “be something” to the consumer. He emphasized that consumers are going to different stores to get different products. When I think my families purchasing habits we… Read More

When I took economics in University, one of the concepts that I was taught was economies of scale. This concept is defined as obtaining cost advantages that a business obtains due to expansion. In farming there is a constant thirst by farmers to add land or head space to their operation. It is quite common… Read More

Last week at the Crop Production Show I sat down with David Asbridge, Client Development Manager / Senior Economist with Doane Advisory Services. Doane Advisory Services is the largest agricultural advisory company in the United States. Here is Part 1 and 2 of the interview that I participated in with David at Crop Week in… Read More

Risk is well known board game, played on a map of the world, in which players effectively bet (take on calculated risk) and play to take over more and more countries and ultimately rule the world. I am just musing here, but if you were taking stock of countries and their respective currencies, would it… Read More

This is my first time to Crop Week in Saskatoon and I plan to return in the future. One thing that is consistent amongst farm shows is the ever present beer gardens. Now don’t get me wrong there is serious business that is done over a cold one. There is discussion about Roughriders football, who… Read More

If you really examine the issues that family farms face you might conclude that they are set up to fail. I am not talking about challenges like low commodity prices or high input costs. What I mean by this is that families that farm together really face tough battles that are different than regular corporate… Read More

In my role at Haney Farms, I get to chat with many farmers from across the country which allows me to keep my finger on the pulse of the farming community. Another great way to further understand the pulse or the issues of farmers is to talk to equipment dealers, grain buyers and financiers to… Read More

If you cannot see the video above, click here Canada has very diverse agronomic conditions across the country. Many times farmers just think of the big crops like corn, canola, soybeans, barley, wheat and oats and forget that there are many other crops being grown in Canada. One of those crops is Camelina, which is… Read More

Garth Donald – Dynagra VRT – Fertility Management from RealAgriculture.com on Vimeo. It is no secret that fertilizer is a hot topic for North American farmers this winter. With the volatility of fertilizer over the past 12 months and the increased speculation towards where the price is going, it seems that farmers and retailers have… Read More

There has been a lot of discussion at CropWeek today about seed varieties. Whether it is corn, canola, wheat or barley, there are some key fundamental criteria that you should use to make the right variety selection decision. I am sure that every farmer has different criteria and puts different levels of importance on each… Read More

Starting tomorrow, I will be traveling to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for Crop Week . I will be attending the Crop Production Show and Crop Production week. I will be blogging and Twittering from the show on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I want to make sure that that all of our readers are up to date with… Read More

Yesterday, I spent some time talking to Dr. Danny LeRoy, Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Lethbridge.  We spoke at great length about the economy and the affect it will have on agriculture.  I was speaking to Dr. LeRoy for research that I was doing for my Grainews column.  To say that Dr. LeRoy… Read More

It is sad but so true. The graph to the left not only describes what has happened to the grain markets but also mysteriously looks like a Christmas tree.  I found this picture at the blog Eds World: Grain Marketing.  As Ed describes in the blog, he is not sure if he should laugh or cry…. Read More

 

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