Record crop? Meet plugged elevator. Shippers say it’s a match made in purgatory for farmers and exporters trying to get this year’s harvest to market — and the railways are to blame. “We’re not getting enough rail capacity to move the crop right now,” Wade Sobkowich, executive director of the Western Grain Elevator Association said […] Read more
Record crop meets plugged system
Grain industry reacts to CGC’s insurance-based security scheme
Response to the Canadian Grain Commission’s (CGC) proposal to replace its current producer security program with an insurance scheme is mostly positive. But support is contingent on the new program being cheaper than the current one — something the CGC says will be the case, even though no figures have been released yet. Keystone Agricultural […] Read more
Dawson: Crop sales to yield equity stakes in privatized CWB
Western Canadian farmers can expect to get $5 of equity in a privatized CWB, for every tonne sold to CWB this crop year. The offer was recently posted on CWB’s website, Gord Flaten, CWB’s vice-president for grain procurement, said in an interview. Details were issued to grain companies Thursday and information is also being sent […] Read more
Consultations to begin on Sask. agricultural drainage
The Saskatchewan government is asking citizens for their views on agricultural drainage through an online forum running from Sept. 1 through to March 31, 2014. “We’re looking for input and opinions because drainage has been an issue for a while and the 25-year plan (for water management) identified it as an area of concern to […] Read more
First fusarium-resistant spring wheat now in pipeline
Launching two new Canadian Prairie Spring red (CPS) wheats, including the first fusarium head blight-resistant spring wheat bred for western Canadian farmers, is a great way to cap a 40-year-long career in planting breeding, says Doug Brown. Ten years in the making, HY1615, which is resistant to the yield-crippling fusarium, and HY1610, which is 10 […] Read more
Extra teeth demanded for rail service bill
What they describe as the worst rail service in three years has prompted shippers to propose amendments to toughen the federal government’s proposed Fair Rail Freight Service Act. A coalition of shippers laid out proposals Friday for new amendments to the Act, now proposed in federal Bill C-52, in a bid to help balance their […] Read more
Man. crop insurance to expand areas for heat-loving crops
Manitoba’s crop insurance program will expand provincewide on a test basis this year in its coverage of soybeans, corn, open-pollinated corn, edible beans, sunflowers and lentils. Until now, those crops were only insurable in areas deemed to be warm enough, and with enough frost-free days. However, farmers from outside those areas have been asking for […] Read more
Prairie farm writer Rod Edwards, 72
Veteran farm reporter and former Manitoba Co-operator associate editor Rod Edwards has died following a battle with cancer. Edwards passed away Jan. 9 at age 72 at Winnipeg’s Riverview Health Centre. He worked as a reporter for the Canadian Press news agency and for the Winnipeg Free Press before joining the Co-operator in the mid-1980s. […] Read more
Farmers left in lurch on sale of Man. hog producer
Manitoba farmers owed at least $1 million for feed grain delivered to financially troubled hog producer Puratone Corp. are left holding an empty bag with the company’s pending sale to Maple Leaf Foods. Earlier this month Toronto-based Maple Leaf, which operates a major hog-slaughtering plant at Brandon, Man., announced it was buying Puratone, one of […] Read more
Western seed industry worried about Roundup Ready alfalfa
Efforts to commercialize genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready alfalfa in Eastern Canada can’t be done without harming forage seed exports from Western Canada, according Manitoba forage seed officials. "I’m very concerned because I do not believe there’s any way to restrict the seed to eastern Canada," Kurt Shmon, president of Winnipeg-based Imperial Seed, said in […] Read more
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