In the story that seemed like it would never end.  China has finally approved the Glencore purchase of Viterra.  Many people in the industry were starting to question whether the deal would actually ever happen due to the constant delays and extensions of the deadline. See the press release. According to the press release:  This was the… Read More

The threat of bovine tuberculosis from wild populations of animals in Manitoba’s Riding Mountain National Park area has weighed heavily on cattle producers in the region for some time. The region has seen a steady decline in cattle and ranchers in part due to this threat. As a plan of attack, Manitoba recently announced the… Read More

The final Statistics Canada numbers are tallied for the 2012 crop and while there are few surprises in the report over the last version, it should be noted that corn and soybeans both had banner years. Grain corn is estimated at a record 13.1 million tonnes, up 15.0% from 2011. In Ontario, Stats Can estimates corn for grain… Read More

Last week, a great contributor to the Canadian cattle industry was taken from us much too soon.  I was very saddened when I heard that last week of the passing of Neil Jannke. I had a beer with Neil and his son Shane at the Saskatchewan StockGrowers AGM last spring.  Always when with the Jahnke’s there was some great… Read More

CWB announced today the dispatch of its first shipload of canola from the Port of Prince Rupert. The cargo of 42,000 tonnes of Prairie canola is now travelling aboard the vessel Tai Health, enroute to customers in Japan, according to the company’s press release. Changes to the western Canadian grain-marketing system, implemented by the federal… Read More

Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives will have some regional offices “streamlined” in an effort by the province to reduce expenditures and deliver services more efficiently, a press release announced today. Front-line services will not be negatively impacted, the province says. Offices will be consolidated while in other cases it will mean restructuring, “modernizing services”… Read More

Novozymes has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Natural Industries Inc., a company based in Houston, USA. Natural Industries Inc. is a bioagricultural company with annual revenues of $5 million. Natural Industries Inc. and Novozymes have agreed not to disclose the financial terms of the agreement. The bioagriculture market is driven by farmers wanting to… Read More

BASF has completed the acquisition of Becker Underwood from Norwest Equity Partners, a U.S.-based private equity investment company, for a purchase price of US$1.02 billion, according to its press release. With the acquisition, BASF is now a global provider of technologies for biological seed treatment as well as seed treatment colorants and polymers. BASF has… Read More