Grain markets were mostly higher this week as weather premiums continues to whip up some bullish activity. Wheat prices led the grain complex lower Friday as traders prepared for the upcoming holiday weekend. The day had started with small gains due to news of harvest delays down in the Brazilian fields. But profit-taking appeared to… Read More
Category: CropConnect
Simplot announced a $460 million expansion of its potato processing facility at Portage la Prairie, Man. on Wednesday. Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister and Agriculture Minister Ralph Eichler were on hand with J.R. Simplot CEO Bill Whitacre to announce the investment, an expansion that will add nearly 100 jobs to the facility. “Manitoba delivers in so… Read More
The Manitoba Flax Growers Association (MFGA) has found a new home. The provincial flax organization was previously headquartered in Winnipeg at the Flax Council of Canada’s office, but the Flax Council closed its doors at the end of January. As of March 1, 2018, the provincial flax organization will have its operations and programming administered… Read More
“Budgets are always going to be tight, regulatory issues are always going to be confounding, but creativity is free.” Whether we’re talking about employees at Disney or on a North American farm, financial and regulatory constraints will always exist. How businesses perform within those limitations depends on creativity, stresses Doug Lipp, business consultant and author… Read More
If you grew first-generation Roundup Ready soybeans under contract, saving and trading or re-planting that seed could result in a violation of their contract, says Lorne Hadley, executive director of the Canadian Plant Technology Agency. In 2011, Monsanto’s patent on the first Roundup Ready trait in soybeans expired. Some sellers may be selling or trading soybean… Read More
It almost sounds too good to be true, with farmers often feeling the general public is uninformed and uninterested in agriculture, but urban media outlets are realizing stories about farming and food resonate with their audiences. Whether it’s the ‘wow’ factor, interesting personal stories, great visuals, or top-of-mind topics related to our own health or the environment, agriculture has plenty… Read More
Western Canadian farmers are being asked to participate in a survey analyzing the adoption of precision agriculture tools, as well as the barriers to adoption and innovation, on the prairies. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has commissioned Lethbridge-area precision agronomist Dale Steele to lead the study. As he explains in the video below, the results will be used… Read More
U.S. farmers grew a record soybean crop in 2016, South American farmers are harvesting a record crop, and big soybean acres are expected in North America in 2017, yet somehow soybean prices have remained relatively strong to start 2017. “We’re about a buck a bushel above where we were at the fall lows, which is… Read More
The idea that Manitoba’s commodity organizations need to work more closely together to provide more value to members — possibly going as far as merging — was formally introduced and discussed recently at CropConnect. “All these organizations, particularly in Manitoba, have basically the same membership, doing very similar projects, with the same money, going after… Read More
With unharvested crop still in the field and saturated soils in many areas, some helpful weather could be on the way for Western Canada this spring, says Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. “The spring bias is tilted toward a little less precipitation and a slight warmer bias,” he says in the video below, filmed after… Read More
After four consecutive years of record wheat production in the world, we’ve become accustomed to adjectives like “burdensome” and “massive” describing wheat supplies. However, it’s looking like 2017 could break that trend, according to Mike Krueger of The Money Farm. “That pattern is starting to change,” he says in the interview below, filmed at CropConnect in Winnipeg… Read More
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead, and Canada needs to move on to ‘plan B’ for increasing market access into Asia, according to Glen Hodgson, senior fellow with the Conference Board of Canada. “The Japanese are trying to keep it alive, but it’s effectively dead. I do think we should be developing a ‘plan B’ for Asia,… Read More
Around 1,600 people spent part of this week at the Victoria Inn Convention Centre in Winnipeg taking in the 2017 CropConnect Conference. Organized by eight provincial commodity organizations, co-chair Roberta Galbraith joined Kelvin for a wrap-up of the fourth-annual edition of CropConnect: CropConnect ’17 notes: The idea of collaborating/working together/possibly even merging provincial commodity associations was… Read More
Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay was in Winnipeg on Wednesday, visiting CropConnect with his Manitoba counterpart Ralph Eichler. MacAulay announced $675 thousand to support market development work through the Canadian Special crops Association and Cereals Canada. Both ministers also outlined $1.6 million in fed/prov funding for eight crop research projects at the conference (coming from… Read More
Granular phosphorus fertilizer recovered from liquid hog manure could be a viable alternative to traditional 11-52 monoammonium phosphate (MAP) fertilizer for growing wheat and canola, according to research done at the University of Manitoba. Struvite “looks like a fantastic fertilizer,” says Don Flaten, U of M soil scientist and one of the authors of a… Read More