Farm groups are urging members of the Senate to avoid stalling on Bill C-234, with limited time left on the calendar before Parliament’s summer break. The proposed legislation, which was approved by the House of Commons earlier this year, would remove the federal carbon tax from propane and natural gas used for grain drying, barn… Read More
Author: Kelvin Heppner
Kelvin Heppner, field editor for RealAgriculture, has been reporting on Canadian agriculture since 2008(ish). When he's not working on a story, he's usually in a chicken barn or a field, as he also farms with his family near Altona, Manitoba.
The Canadian government has decided to sign on as a third party in the United States’ request for dispute settlement consultations regarding Mexico’s restrictions on biotechnology in agriculture. Canada’s trade and agriculture ministers, Mary Ng and Marie-Claude Bibeau, announced the decision on Friday, which was the deadline for joining the U.S. challenge under the rules… Read More
Update, June 9: The Canadian government has decided to sign on as a third party in the United States’ request for dispute settlement consultations regarding Mexico’s restrictions on biotechnology in agriculture. The U.S. government’s challenge of Mexico’s ban of genetically-modified (GM) corn for common food uses is being closely monitored in Canada, specifically in the… Read More
Verticillium stripe — a disease first discovered in Western Canada in 2014 — appears to be taking advantage of the stress to canola plants caused by an old, familiar disease pathogen. While research to understand Verticillium longisporum in the Prairies is still in its early stages, there’s a hypothesis that its prevalence in a canola… Read More
The Canadian government has not yet decided whether it will join the U.S. in its trade dispute over Mexico’s restrictions on agricultural biotechnology. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai formally requested dispute settlement consultations with Mexico under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico (CUSMA or USMCA) trade agreement on Friday. The dispute revolves around Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s… Read More
There are still plenty of unknowns surrounding the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak that has killed millions of chickens and turkeys on farms across North America going back to early 2022, but a drop in the number of new cases in the month of May is a positive sign for the poultry sector. The… Read More
A new report commissioned by the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association (SSGA) and the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Foundation (SSGF) looks at the differences in profitability between cow-calf and annual crop production in southwest Saskatchewan. Over a 50 year time period, the returns from grain farming are $508/acre higher than cow-calf production, according to the research modelling… Read More
The federal agriculture minister says she would like to move ahead on modernizing the Canada Grain Act before the end of the calendar year. The Act and the role of the Canadian Grain Commission in administering it have been the subject of multiple reviews and rounds of consultations, with no major changes going back to… Read More
A European corn borer (ECB) population in part of eastern Canada appears to have developed resistance to a Bt protein commonly used in North American corn hybrids for preventing damage from the pest. On April 27th, the Canadian Corn Pest Coalition reported a sample of ECB collected near Truro, Nova Scotia, showed reduced susceptibility to… Read More
The rule of thumb for planting soybeans in Western Canada has generally been to wait until the soil is 10 degrees C — often after canola is in the ground, but there are a number of reasons, including historical yield data, that suggest the crop would benefit from earlier planting. This Soybean School episode, recorded… Read More
Record yields in 2022 after a late start are raising some questions about the assumption that earlier is always better for planting corn in Manitoba and other northern growing areas. Historical averages in Manitoba show a downward trend in yield with each week that passes in May, but the 2022 crop set a new bar… Read More
Statistics Canada is reviewing the timing of its traditional April seeding intentions report, after making a major change to the way it compiled data for the report this year. The seeding intentions report for 2023, released last week, was based on a farmer survey conducted from December 12, 2022, to January 14, 2023. Historically, the… Read More
A group of 13 commodity and farm organizations representing grain shippers are calling on the federal government to move ahead with a commitment to bring back extended interswitching in the Canadian rail system. The 2023 federal budget included a promise to implement an 18-month pilot trial for extended interswitching. Interswitching allows a shipper that’s served… Read More
Statistics Canada (StatsCan) says wheat acres across Canada will be the highest they’ve been in more than twenty years, while area planted to canola, corn, barley, and soybeans will also climb in 2023. However there’s an asterisk beside those numbers, as the agency also announced a major change to the methodology behind its seeding intentions… Read More
It was 2004, less than a year after BSE hit the Canadian cattle industry, when Canada’s first outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) devastated poultry production in B.C. Without any playbook on how to manage the virus, a decision was made to cull all the birds on commercial farms in B.C.’s Fraser Valley. While… Read More