A cross-border trade issue with P.E.I seed and table potatoes seems likely to extend long past the winter season, as Canadian Food Inspection Agency says that providing the U.S. with the testing data it requires may take until 2023. Canada preemptively banned the sale of seed potatoes out of P.E.I in late November, after the… Read More
How do you measure soil heath? On this episode of RealAgriculture’s Soil School, OMAFRA soil scientist and land use specialist Dan Saurette joins Bernard Tobin to look at some of the assessment tools available to farmers and the type of insights they provide. One of the most well known soil health tests is Cornell’s Comprehensive… Read More
Protein Industries Canada (PIC) is announcing a project to establish lupin as a staple crop in the Canadian agri-food sector. Lupin Platform Inc., Hensall Co-op, Lumi Foods, and PURIS have come together to establish an integrated ecosystem to increase the production and processing of lupin in Canada. The $7.3 million project will develop a lupin… Read More
Farmers Edge has announced the creation of DigiAg Risk Management Inc., a subsidiary of Farmers Edge. This new unit will provide farmers across Canada with parametric insurance products, risk transfer solutions, and group benefits, the company says. DigiAg is the sole managing general agency (MGA) with access to proprietary, field-centric datasets coming directly from broadacre… Read More
2021 has been a tough weather year. From prolonged drought and excessive heat, to the flooding witnessed in recent weeks in British Columbia — weather disasters have had a tremendous impact on Canadian farms and agriculture businesses. Erik Davies, from Barefoot Consulting, has spent his career working on disaster recovery and risk management issues. Last month… Read More
There are an estimated 100 million pounds of hay pledged to the Hay West ’21 initiative waiting for a ride west from the Maritimes, Quebec, and Ontario. The federal minister of agriculture, Marie-Claude Bibeau, on Wednesday (Dec. 15) pledged up to $3 million in support for the program to help cover the cost of hay… Read More
As the holiday season approaches, it’s important to take the time to reflect on just how lucky we are to live in this part of Canada. This last week of wild weather in the U.S. is a reminder of that. And let’s not forget the hundreds of livestock producers may not be back home after… Read More
A comprehensive survey of farmers in Ontario suggests that once farmers incorporate cover crops in to the cropping strategy, they tend to stay in the rotation. That’s according to the Ontario Cover Crop Feedback Survey, completed by graduate student Callum Morrison and advisor Yvonne Lawley with the University of Manitoba. They collaborated with the Ontario Cover… Read More
As farmers continue to look for answers to questions they are faced with on their farm, the need for on-farm research programs continues. One of these on-farm research programs is the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions Plot2Farm program. Jeremy Boychyn, agronomy research extension specialist with Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions, was at the Prairie Cereals… Read More
Canadian Pacific Railway is the new owner of Kansas City Southern as of December 14, 2021, although KCS must continue to operate independently until the U.S. Surface Transportation Board approves the North American railway marriage. Upon closing of the US$31 billion deal on Tuesday, the shares of KCS were placed into a voting trust, and… Read More
Every selection tool shifts the weed spectrum, and that includes farmer-controlled decisions such as tillage, crop rotation, and seeding rate. It also includes non-farmer controlled selection tools, such as wet or dry weather cycles. To unpack what we can learn from shifting weed patterns, we go to Mike Cowbrough, weed specialist with the Ontario Ministry… Read More
2021 will certainly be remembered for the drought in Western Canada, but there were other factors, such as late frost, damaging winds, and new pests that also challenged the soybean crop on the eastern side of the Prairies. Despite all of those stresses, there was still a crop to harvest in most cases, with yields… Read More
The federal government is providing up to $5.1 million in financing to help an oat plant near Altona, Man. set up a first-in-Canada oat kiln for processing oats into food ingredients. Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid announced the repayable contribution for Buffalo Creek Mills in a virtual press conference on Monday. The funds, which come… Read More
Last winter, a draft of a code of practice for Canadian grain farmers created significant push-back from growers. Following a consultation period, the majority of feedback was “unsupportive” of the code, as written. The feedback provided pushed the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Crops (CRSC) to take a step back, and further dig in to the “why”… Read More
The Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) is proposing to update producers’ access to grain grading dispute resolution, commonly known as “Subject to Inspector’s Grade and Dockage.” Comments will be accepted on the new rules until midnight on February 28, 2022. If a producer disagrees with a Canadian Grain Commission-licensed primary elevator’s assessment of their grain, they have… Read More