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

The number of herbicide-resistant weed cases is growing while the list of modes of action available for controlling these weeds is not, so farmers in Western Canada have shifted back to soil-applied herbicides, including some old chemistries, like Edge and Avadex. “We’re going full-circle here. These are older chemistries, but they’re coming back in and growers… Read More

Responding to rapidly climbing demand from consumers and food companies, a Saskatoon-based company is quadrupling its contracted acres of quinoa production this spring. Northern Quinoa owns the lone Canadian-developed variety of quinoa and is one of only a few buyers of the pseudocereal crop in the country. The company has been growing and producing a small… Read More