The USDA took grain markets by surprise with the numbers in its August supply/demand report on Wednesday morning. Corn, soybeans and canola futures dropped sharply following the much larger than expected production and ending stock estimates. Soybean ending stocks for 2015-16 were pegged at 470 million bushels — up from the USDA’s estimate of 425 million, and significantly higher than… 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.
There’s been renewed interest in using producer cars to ship grain to customers in recent years, in part due to the backlog in the Western Canadian grain handling system following the bumper crop in 2013, as well as the entrance of new grain buyers after the end of the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly in 2012. As… Read More
Knowing the context in which a plant variety was selected is critical in understanding how it should be managed in the field. As an example, in the video above, Martin Entz of the University of Manitoba explains what happens when cereal crop varieties developed in a conventional breeding system are grown in an organic system, or vice… Read More
The Privy Council Office has clarified the rules regarding the conduct of government officials, including ministers, during an election. The details are of particular interest for farm groups because they allow Trade Minister Ed Fast and Canadian negotiators to continue participating in Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. Trade ministers and lead negotiators from the 12 participating countries… Read More
First its monopoly was removed, and now the name will be history too. The Canadian Wheat Board (or CWB) formally became a private grain company known as “G3 Canada” today. G3 Global Grain Group — the joint venture between Bunge and the Saudi Agriculture and Livestock Investment Company — completed the $250 million acquisition of a… Read More
The Canadian Grain Commission has announced 29 varieties of Canada Western Red Spring and Canada Prairie Spring Red wheat will be moved to a different wheat class on August 1st, 2017. The reclassification follows a revision of the quality parameters for the CWRS and CPSR classes by the Prairie Grain Development Committee earlier this year…. Read More
Grain and oilseed futures have dropped sharply over the last week, falling well off the summer highs set earlier in July. Weather premiums are shrinking as growing conditions have improved, or at least stabilized, across much of Canada and the U.S. corn belt over the last three weeks, explains Dave Reimann, senior market analyst with Cargill,… Read More
Quebec farmers rallied outside the constituency office of federal Minister of State Maxime Bernier in Sainte-Marie on Friday. They demanded the federal government maintain the status quo for supply management in negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The rally was organized by Quebec farm group Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA). Speaking on the phone after the event, the president of… Read More
Cargill held a grand opening this week for the company’s canola refinery at Clavet, Saskatchewan. The facility is designed to refine approximately 450 thousand metric tonnes (1 billion pounds) of canola oil annually, making it Cargill’s largest refinery in North America. It sits adjacent to Cargill’s canola crush facility at Clavet, which after expanding in… Read More
There’s been plenty of buzz about the potential uses for unmanned aerial vehicles on farms over the last few years, but many producers are still waiting to see if there’s a business case for purchasing one. They want to see if UAVs can add enough value to justify spending not only the money, but also the time it takes to… Read More
There’s potential for much more composting in North American farming, say researchers at the University of Manitoba. “Turning waste into gold” was the theme for the annual field day at the U of M’s Glenlea Research Farm last week. Mario Tenuta, soil ecologist at the University of Manitoba, describes the value of farm-scale composting of manure,… Read More
Canadian farmers who own dairy or poultry quota may not have to live with the stress that comes from marketing a product on a volatile open market, but their stress comes in another form: the worry that the federal government will pull the rug (or one of the three pillars) out from under the regulatory… Read More
Saskatchewan farmers have an extra 15 days to plant greenfeed crops and still receive crop insurance coverage. The federal and provincial agriculture ministers announced the deadline has been pushed back from June 30th to July 15th in hopes it will help mitigate a potential feed shortage. “The lack of moisture through the spring and so far this growing season has… Read More
Drought may have surpassed grain transportation as the number one challenge on the collective mind of Western Canadian grain farmers this year, but the need to address long-term logistical challenges should not be forgotten, says an ag economist from the University of Saskatchewan. “In the current situation it looks like basis levels may return to historically normal levels, however if… Read More
Grain and oilseed markets were green across the board on Tuesday after the USDA and Statistics Canada dropped a heavy load of new information into the market. The USDA released updated acreage and stocks estimates while StatsCan shared its acreage projections based on a farmer survey in early June. New crop soybean futures jumped more… Read More