When COVID-19 restrictions began in mid-March, it wasn’t surprising that conferences and agriculture events were postponed or cancelled outright. Soon after, cancellations stretched into the summer months, or events moved to a virtual or online-only platform, and recent announcements of Agribition in the west and The Royal in the east seemed to be the final… Read More
While Canadian farmers maintain access to over-the-top use of dicamba herbicides in herbicide-tolerant crops, American farmers are dealing with significant uncertainty regarding access to the product not just this season, but for next year and years to come. The 9th Circuit Court in the U.S. vacated dicamba’s over-the-top registration June 3rd, 2020, ruling that the… Read More
Rural communities need certain basic functions to survive in the long term. Whether it’s medical service, the local school, rural broadband, or a dry goods store, rural communities struggle to keep enough services around. Could mail delivery be one the next big battles to keep alive? For many rural communities in Canada, Canada Post is… Read More
We’ve talked about flattening the COVID-19 infection curve and a flattened recovery curve, and now we’re talking about flattening the worry curve. David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data, a polling and market research firm, says that his company has been tracking how Canadians feel about COVID-19, how stressed they are about it, how long isolation… Read More
As schools, parliament, businesses, and entire sports leagues shut down, the concern over supply chain interruption grows. Health concerns aside, what production-level concern worries you most for agriculture during this COVID-19 outbreak? Have your say!
Adopting new technology on the farm — from new hybrids to new pesticides, to full-on automation — comes with a price tag. This new or additional cost might be absolutely worth it if the technology makes more yield, decreases input costs, or saves you time and labour. While most technology comes to the farm with… Read More
Following a challenging year and a wet harvest, Manitoba farmers are kicking off 2020 with some crop still in the field, possibly tough grain in the bin, and a large decision on representation. At the recent Prairie Cereals Summit, news lead Jessika Guse sat down with Pam de Rocquigny, general manager of the Manitoba Corn… Read More
We’ve seen results from an early-campaign survey on what Canadians are worried about in regards to food, and we’ve heard from each of the four main parties heading into this federal election. But what I want to know is, what are YOUR priorities, Canadian agriculture? As media, I watched the debate, I interviewed Sylvain Charlebois… Read More
The White House announced a second direct payment program this week for American farmers that have suffered loss of market access due to the U.S.’s trade war with China. The program totals US$16 billion and covers a majority of crops and livestock produced in the U.S. At the same time, Canadian producers are just as… Read More
In the wake of several high-profile accidents involving semi trucks, Saskatchewan has moved to ensure potential drivers receive more training. On April 6, 2018 sixteen people were killed and 13 injured when a semi-trailer failed to yield at a flashing stop sign and crashed into a bus carrying players and staff of the Humboldt Broncos… Read More
If your farming career is less than 20 years old, you’ve likely not had the shock of seeing your debt payments balloon as interest rates rise. Why? Because interest rates have been historically low and very steady for a very long time. That ‘cheap money’ environment is changing, however, as the Bank of Canada has… Read More
The Government of Saskatchewan has released its findings from the trespassing survey sent out in the later part of summer. Out of the 1,601 responses, two-thirds, or 65 per cent, of the rural property owners surveyed, support consent having to be obtained in advance to access privately-owned land. “The responses show that many people see… Read More
Producers in the U.S. were more optimistic last month versus the month before according to the latest Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer. The October barometer reading of 136 was 22 points higher than the prior month, which was the lowest reading for the survey since 2016. The producer sentiment jumped back up from the… Read More
With the announcement of the carbon tax program implemented in provinces without a nationally accredited carbon tax policy, people in two of the three prairie provinces have flipped their vote to support the federal government’s plan. According to a recent poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute, the public’s perception in Alberta and Saskatchewan of… Read More
The dust has settled after the fanfare of trade negotiators moving on from NAFTA 2.0 and giving us the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, a new, trilateral trade agreement that moves now to ratification within each of the three signatories. Now, nearly a month out from the announcement, Canadians have sifted through news coverage and nearly half have… Read More