Glacier FarmMedia — U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack says the United States is trying to regain its competitive edge in world agricultural markets.

He told delegates attending the 2024 Commodity Classic conference that for many years the U.S. had better transportation logistics than its competitors and that gave the country a price advantage in overseas markets.

But that competitive advantage has evaporated due to large infrastructure investments by Brazil and Argentina.

“That price difference over time has disappeared,” said Vilsack.

It’s why the U.S. “doubled down” with the passing of the Bipartisan Infrastructure deal in 2021, a bill that will result in improved roads and bridges, ports and locks and dams.

But those investments will take time to come to fruition. In the meantime, the U.S. is going to attempt to boost exports through increased funding of export promotion programs, said Vilsack.

Todd Hultman, lead analyst for DTN, told farmers that spot corn futures will likely trade in the range of $4 to $5.25 per bushel in 2024-25, while soybeans will likely bounce around between $11 and $14 per bu.

His colleague John Baranick, DTN’s ag meteorologist, told U.S. growers to expect a hot spring and summer.

He is forecasting wet spring conditions in the northern and eastern portions of the country, while the summer will by dry throughout much of the Plains region.

Arlan Suderman, chief economist with StoneX, said Brazil’s soybean crop is getting bigger.

The company surveyed its farmer customers in that country, and they indicated that the crop could be 151.6 million tonnes, up 1.2 million tonnes from its previous forecast.

Corn production is pegged at 124.5 million tonnes, unchanged from the previous forecast, considering growers just finished planting the second crop of corn.

Suderman said a lot of those Brazilian soybeans will be heading to China, which appears to be stockpiling a wide variety of crops.

“So why are they buying?” he said during a live taping of the U.S. Farm Report at the 2024 Commodity Classic.

One theory is that the government is buying a large amount of corn and other crops from its growers to prop up domestic prices.

That is also creating an inviting environment for imports. But those imports are increasingly being supplied by Brazil and Ukraine, while U.S. crops are slowly being squeezed out, said Suderman.

Chip Flory, editor emeritus of Pro Farmer and host of AgriTalk, wonders if China is preparing for an invasion of Taiwan.

Suderman thinks that is a distinct possibility. Chinese president Xi Jinping has stated that he is going to bring Taiwan back into the fold during his tenure in office and he is 70 years old.

Flory wonders if the political landscape is setting up for another trade war between China and the U.S. if Donald Trump is re-elected as U.S. president.

If that happens, growers should prepare for another round of direct subsidies to offset the loss of that market.

Carah Hart, president of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting, spoke about the threat that electric vehicles pose to radio broadcasters.

Car manufacturers say electromagnetic interference in electric vehicles causes static and limited coverage with AM radio.

Despite mitigation solutions, some EV manufacturers have stopped putting AM radios in their cars.

Hart said that is having a huge detrimental impact for farm broadcasters around the country.

She encouraged delegates attending the general session of the Commodity Classic to support the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, which would require access to AM broadcast stations in motor vehicles.

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The region, a stronghold of the conservative opposition to socialist President Luis Arce, is in its sixth day of protests that have seen thousands of people take to the streets and nights of clashes with weaponized fireworks and cars burned.

On Tuesday hundreds of women marched to the city police headquarters in support of Camacho, demanding his release.

On the nearby streets were burnt-out vehicles, smouldering fires and blockades from the overnight clashes.

The protests, sparked by the Dec. 28 arrest of Camacho over an alleged coup in 2019, are deepening divides between lowland Santa Cruz and the highland, more indigenous political capital La Paz, which have long butted heads over politics and state funds.

Camacho was seized by special police forces, taken out of the province by helicopter and is now in a maximum security jail in the highland city El Alto. He denies all charges that relate to the divisive removal of former socialist leader Evo Morales in 2019.

Santa Cruz leaders pledge to fight until Camacho is released, picketing government buildings and stopping transport of grains. There are also calls for a federal system giving the city more autonomy and state funds.

“We have a mandate from our assembly that nothing leaves Santa Cruz and that is what we are going to do,” said Rómulo Calvo, head of the powerful Pro Santa Cruz civic group.

Marcelo Cruz, president of the International Heavy Transport Association of Santa Cruz, said routes were being blocked so no trucks could leave the province.

“No grain, animal or supply from the factories should leave Santa Cruz for the rest of the country. The blocking points are being reinforced,” he said.

“Outlaw state”

Morales and allies — including current president Arce — say his ouster was a coup and have prosecuted opposition figures they blame for it. Jeanine Anez, who became interim president after his removal, was jailed for 10 years in 2022.

Human rights groups say the government is using a weak justice system to go after its opponents.

“We are no longer a state of law, we are an outlaw state,” said Erwin Bazan, from the right-wing Creemos party, saying the charges against Camacho were politically motivated.

Others blame Camacho for tensions in 2019 which saw dozens killed in protests, including supporters of Morales.

“Let him go to jail for 30 years. We want justice,” said Maria Laura, a supporter of the ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS) party.

Morales remains the party’s leader though has at times clashed with new president Arce.

Paul Coca, a lawyer and analyst in La Paz, said the internal divisions in the ruling party were partly behind the arrest, with Arce trying to neutralize criticism from Morales.

“(Arce) had to confront his party leader or directly go against Luis Fernando Camacho. And he obviously chose to go all out against Camacho,” he said.

The blockade could dent food supply to other parts of the country as well as exports and growth as Bolivia grapples with a large fiscal deficit and low reserves.

“Santa Cruz is the economic stronghold of Bolivia,” said Gary Rodríguez, general manager of the Bolivian Institute of Foreign Trade (IBCE).

The region is the main producer of soy, sugar cane, wheat, rice, corn and livestock.

“All this great private productive effort is now in danger.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Adam Jourdan and Daniel Ramos; additional reporting by Monica Machicao.

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Two years of pandemic restrictions, followed by the Russian attack on Ukraine, are far different hurdles than the typical weather challenges.

“This isn’t just a grain story. This is potash. This is energy,” said David Przednowek, assistant vice-president of grain at Canadian National (CN) Railway. “You think about the implications of sanctions and how that might have impacted what you’re buying.”

Why it matters: Canada must solve its transportation issues in order to recover fully from the pandemic, says a rail official.
Add in the structural changes within the workforce and the entire supply chain has to adjust. Labour has been a persistent issue for years.

“We have a structural deficit in North America right now and that’s due to demographic change… not a lot of immigration,” he said. “I think the major thing with the supply chain and just the economy in general is going to be people.”

Susan Ewart, executive director of the Saskatchewan Trucking Association, agreed.

“Today, there are 23,000 vacant truck driver positions (and) by the end of the year they’re predicting 55,000,” she said.

The aging work force, COVID and the industry’s image haven’t helped make trucking a desirable career, she added.

Aside from drivers, the industry is short of dispatchers, administration staff and heavy-duty mechanics.

“As consumers we are seeing the results of that on the store shelves,” Ewart said.

Immigration is a piece of the solution but not all of it, she added. The industry is trying to work with high schools to encourage a next generation. And 10 women each year participate in the Women Shifting Gears program, designed to show them what trucking is like.

“Employers are starting to change their thought process around flexible working environments because I think there is an image and a perception that ‘I’m not ever home’ and it’s always about long haul,” she said.

Some companies are switching drivers part-way through routes to lessen long hauls and time away from home, Ewart said.

Przednowek said railroads have similar issues. He noted some of the densest traffic areas are those in remote parts of northern Alberta and British Columbia. The jobs pay well but families also have to consider access to schools and services and it becomes more difficult to recruit.

The training alone takes six to nine months, depending on the job.

“People are making individual decisions about work life balance and what it is they want to get out of employment,” he said.

Kenric Exner, general manager of multimodal logistics and trade execution at Viterra, said jobs aren’t just about salary anymore.

“People’s value propositions have drastically changed over the last 18 months,” he said.

But he said working in agriculture is rewarding and offers opportunities if they can just get workers into the industry in the first place.

Przednowek said technology offers some solutions. For example, track inspection now involves a high rail vehicle, with a driver, moving at 15 to 20 mph on track where traffic is stopped at both ends to look for visual defects.

“If we could put special box cars filled with all kinds of technology in there to do that at the same time and do it in the middle of a merchandise train at track speed, which can be up to 50 or 60 mph, you’re adding capacity to the supply chain,” he said.

Exner said many supply chain issues are affecting the industry. Multimodal in particular has had a challenging year. Carriers don’t want containers to come inland and would rather keep them at port to get them back overseas.

He said technology such as loop tracks, high-capacity cars and larger trains all help grain move better.

Panel moderator Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel asked how agriculture is to help Canada recover from COVID if infrastructure is a decade behind where it needs to be.

Przednowek said some capacity constraint is geographic and some is commercially driven. Markets like Eastern Europe and

Russia were once big buyers and now the Pacific region is driving demand.

Between 15 and 17 million tonnes of grain used to move through Thunder Bay and the St. Lawrence River, he said. That capacity is significantly underutilized today, but the industry should be making the most of it.

Exner said the burgeoning domestic crush capacity for canola will change trade patterns again.

“Things will open up to the east,” he predicted. “The whole crush footprint and the whole process of expansion will change how we move product. It’s going to change the pipeline.”

The panel identified other challenges, including the federal plan for zero emissions by 2030. Ewart said she didn’t know how heavy and medium-sized trucks could become electric in the Canadian climate.

Przednowek said CN has pilot programs underway using higher blends of biodiesel or renewable diesel in its engines.

– This article was originally published at The Western Producer.

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Financial statements of the meat-processing companies — which control 55 to 85 per cent of the market for beef, poultry and pork — contradict claims that rising meat prices were caused by higher labour or transportation costs, advisers led by National Economic Council director Brian Deese wrote in an analysis published on the White House website Friday.

Officials studied earnings statements from Tyson Foods, the chicken producer and biggest U.S. meat company by sales; Brazil-based JBS, the world’s biggest meatpacker; Brazilian beef producer Marfrig Global Foods, which owns most of National Beef Packing Co.; and Seaboard Corp.

Those statements showed a 120 per cent collective jump in their gross profits since the pandemic and a 500 per cent increase in net income, the analysis shows. These companies recently announced $1 billion in new dividends and stock buybacks, on top of the more than $3 billion they paid to shareholders since the pandemic began (all figures US$).

Trade group the North American Meat Institute accused the White House of “cherry-picking” data.

“It is no coincidence this blog post appears on the same day as the Consumer Price Index is released showing gas and energy prices are up nearly 60 per cent over the past 12 months which is nearly 10 times the rate of inflation for food,” president Julie Anna Potts said in a statement.

Profit margins — the spread companies are making over and above their costs — have increased significantly too, belying the argument that companies are just passing along higher labour and supply costs, the analysis said, with gross margins up 50 per cent and net margins up over 300 per cent.

“If rising input costs were driving rising meat prices, those profit margins would be roughly flat, because higher prices would be offset by the higher costs,” the analysis said.

Increases in meat prices accounted for 25 per cent of the rise in consumer prices for food consumed at home in November, a big driver in the surge in inflation seen in recent months.

Tyson increased the price of beef “so much — by more than 35 per cent — that they made record profits while actually selling less beef than before,” the advisers wrote.

The companies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The White House, hammered by Republicans over rising inflation, is scrambling to combat rising prices by clearing supply chain logjams and tackling what it views as uncompetitive practices by big companies, which are reporting big profit gains even as consumers suffer.

Friday’s blog — released after November consumer prices showed the largest annual gain since 1982 — reflects growing frustration by White House officials about continued increases in meat prices, an issue it flagged in September.

— Andrea Shalal reports on U.S. trade and economic policy for Reuters from Washington, D.C.

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Would investments in a stockpiled grain supply have helped what appears to be a developing food production crisis?

As a leading exporter, however, the question for Canada should be different. A true food security policy must simultaneously focus on resilience in production and processing, as well as food affordability.

The trouble is, someone has to pay the cost.

Why it matters: Food security in the Canadian context relies on infrastructure investment rather than stockpiling. Keeping food affordable is intrinsic to this process.

In circumstances such as those being experienced on the Prairies, better access to affordable animal feed could have offered respite from the financial pressures of herd maintenance. Similarly, wider stockpiles of frozen fruits and vegetables could hypothetically alleviate price hikes or constricted availability during times of major production disruption.

According to Keith Currie, pastpresident of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and current vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, such scenarios might make stockpiling an appealing stopgap measure.

The solution gets complicated when the cost of storage is in play, both the hard costs of keeping a product and opportunity costs lost from not selling it.

“Storing grain? Farmers can do it, but at some point I need to get it out because I need to make money and pay taxes,” says Currie, adding production security in each sector within agriculture will have its own flavour based on the characteristics of each commodity and its infrastructure requirements.

“If we’re going to keep some in reserve for drastic events, is the government going to put it aside and have some kind of contingency fee or programs for large companies to store it? Do they have capacity to do that?”

Assuming a contingency plan was set in place, Currie believes the costs would likely go downstream rather than up. On one hand this is good because it supports the affordability and accessibility factors within the country’s food security framework.

But on the other, it’s a continuation of primary producer frustration.

“We’re price takers and not price setters. Farmers likely are the ones that ultimately have to pay for it. Is this something which will go over well? … Some kind of a strategy that’s workable is not going to be easy to come by.”

Security from full-system investment

A more effective approach from Currie’s perspective would be widespread investment across all aspects of the food value chain, including research and technology development.

“We hope even though we see more severe weather incidences because of changing climate, we’re also seeing rapid advancement in technologies.

“Our understanding of the value of food production systems is also better…There are a lot of balls in the air. It’s going to take some provocative thought from everyone, from farmers to suppliers and the public.”

Currie’s sentiments are shared by Mike Von Massow, associate professor of food, agriculture, and resource economics at the University of Guelph.

Unlike countries reliant on imports, Von Massow says Canada has no incentive to stockpile. The sheer volume of food produced in Canada means that major production disruptions don’t lead to domestic famine, as it might for people in countries heavily reliant on Canadian exports.

Canadian food security thus relies on financial stability and viability, the ability to adapt existing food production strategies to changing circumstances.

The federal government’s efforts to develop a national food policy, however, are still broad and nebulous, says Von Massow.

“Do we need to irrigate, or have the water to irrigate? What can we grow now? We need to think about how we might do things differently in order to weather these changes,” he says.

“Technology is providing exactly the opportunity to do that kind of adjustment. We need to make sure we think about technological innovation in a way which will make the system more resilient.”

Regardless of what a food security policy looks like, Currie reiterates any true long-term planning must receive government buy-in. That’s a challenge given the time frame in which governments generally operate.

Production and social challenges intertwined

Underlying any discussion of food security lies the fact that one in every seven Canadian households is estimated to be food insecure; that is, living under conditions where maintaining good nutrition represents a major financial burden.

As described by Evan Fraser, director of the University of Guelph’s Arrell Food Institute, this makes food insecurity, not food security, the fundamental issue. Linked primarily to poverty, investments in more resilient production, storage, processing and other parts of the food value chain must not exacerbate individual insecurity.

“These things will make the system more expensive to run…We need policy which produces resilience on the farm end, and on the other hand, we need to protect consumers from price rise,” says Fraser.

“It’s low wages and economic shock which makes poverty and equity issues worse. Investments in social policy are needed here. We could quadruple production and this problem remains.”

For Fraser, it is critical to understand that economic and environmental shocks are a reality, and that existing food system structures have been developed during a prolonged period of relative stability.

“The lesson to take over last 60 years, though, is our system is based on a productive environment, good production conditions and easy trade. These things are not guaranteed. It was the lesson of Trump…We’re one angry tweet away from massive trade disruptions.”

On top of it all, Fraser believes Canadians, and the world more generally, is on the cusp of “one hell of a disruption” in terms of what is produced and how it makes its way through the food system.

“I think we’re in an opening act in the way we feed ourselves. There’s going to be people that suffer, and some that profit enormously…The next 30 years is going to play out very differently than the last 30 years.”

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As a statutory monopoly the port authority is both a port developer and regulator putting it in a conflict of interest, according to WGEA executive director Wade Sobkowich.

“We are working in a port oversight system that simply lacks proper checks and balances, in contrast to what we have in rail or air transportation where there are tools available to hold people accountable for decisions,” Sobkowich said in a news release Thursday.

“With marine ports, we have no recourse to an adequate appeal mechanism, no outside dispute resolution, no independent complaint process, and no effective input to (bod of) director nominations. The federal government needs to address these shortcomings in the Ports Modernization Review.”

The WGEA’s members are Canada’s biggest grain companies who handle more than 90 per cent of the nation’s bulk grain exports — most of them through Vancouver.

Why it matters: Most of Western Canada’s grain is exported through the Port of Vancouver; western farmers need the port to run efficiently and to keep costs, ultimately passed back to farmers, in check.

“The Government of Canada needs to act on the major clean-up of marine port governance that was recommended during the review of the Canada Transportation Act back in 2016-17,” Sobkowich said. “This is having a large negative effect on our ability to unlock existing capacity and to grow the agri-food export sector.”

Among the items on the WGEA’s list, it seeks:

• Adequate recourse to users to challenge and appeal port authority decisions.
• To address conflicts of interest that arise in port management’s role as developer and regulator/administrator.
• To make director appointment rules accountable:
• i) Overhaul nominating committee membership to reflect the users.
• ii) Remove outside interference with nominating committee decision making.
• iii) Allow people who actively work in industry to sit on the board.
• iv) Redesign appointments to adequately reflect provincial economies who rely on the port.
• To ensure port authorities are actively representing federal government jurisdiction on regulatory issues.

In 2019, 70 per cent of products exported from Vancouver were bulk commodities totalling 99.7 million tonnes — most of that from Western Canada.

Of that, 23.5 million tonnes, or 24 per cent of the total, was grain.

Total exports through Vancouver hit 144 million tonnes. Bulk grain, along with 7.5 million tonnes of containerized grain, accounted for 31 million tonnes, or 22 per cent of all Vancouver exports.

Yet the western provinces only get two seats on the port’s board — one for British Columbia and one for Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, Sobkowich said in an interview.

“Something doesn’t add up here from our perspective when you have a port that is so important to the western Canadian economy,” he said.

“The nominating committee process (for port directors) gets interfered with by port management. We’ve been trying to get someone on there with a grain background for years.”

The last nominee from the Prairie provinces was a former vice-president with Cargill.

“We couldn’t even get him an interview,” Sobkowich said.

Vancouver also doesn’t allow directors representing port users to be actively working in the industry.

“Vancouver is very unique in that sense because other ports across the world, not only allow but encourage their users to sit on the board of directors,” he said. “Rotterdam, for example, has five users on the board of directors.”

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, in a separate release Friday, said the three Prairie premiers have written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “to express a willingness to engage and work with the federal government on the port governance structure.”

“As a group, the western provinces make up 85 per cent of the port’s export value, but only have nine per cent of the representation on the board,” Moe said. “We believe that model does not provide balanced representation for the Prairie provinces and are asking for the (port authority) board to be restructured.”

The Saskatchewan government on Friday called for the board to be made up of two federal appointees, two appointees from each of the four Prairie provinces on the recommendations of port users, and one member representing municipalities that border the port authority’s jurisdiction.

‘Valuable space’

The WGEA is also concerned about what appears to be the port’s bias in favour of promoting a new container terminal, Sobkowich said.

The WGEA also suspects its members who operate grain export terminals at the port are paying for the new container terminal, although it’s unclear due to a lack of transparency, Sobkowich said.

“We believe those who stand to benefit should be the ones that should pay,” he said. “And we don’t feel that a developer, should be a regulator and that’s what is happening here. The same party that is advancing a project without a proponent, which will use valuable space in the Port of Vancouver to do container imports and exports, is being advanced by what is essentially a government entity.

“And that same entity is regulating us — charging us rents, charging us infrastructure fees, making decisions on environmental permit applications, making decisions on land use, making decisions on leases that get renewed or don’t get renewed.”

A review of port regulation began several years ago. In September 2019 Transport Canada released a document on what it heard from stakeholders about possible changes to be made.

“But it doesn’t look like it addressed the issues we have addressed here,” Sobkowich said.

Many of the complaints raised by the WGEA involve requirements under the Canada Marine Act, the Port of Vancouver said in a statement Thursday.

“It’s a complex mandate that requires balancing many opposing interests of a broad range of stakeholders, ultimately having to make decisions in the best interests of Canadians generally,” the port said.

“Many of the issues raised by the WGEA — governance, board nominations, and having to consider the impacts of port operations on local communities — are dictated by the Canada Marine Act, and therefore beyond the control of the port authority.”

To fulfill its mandate the port must to ensure infrastructure is in place to handle growing international trade, the port said. A lot of investment has gone into the port during the last 10 years benefitting all terminals, including for grain, resulting in record grain exports.

“Many of the current projects under way are specifically to build capacity for the grain sector, and others will address the increasing demand for container trade,” the port said. “Interestingly, containers are used to ship a significant amount of grain so those container capacity projects will benefit the agricultural sector. Any fees that we may charge terminal operators for common-use infrastructure improvements are subject to consultation with those operators.”

The port’s biggest challenge is the lack of industrial land, the port said.

“That may require difficult choices with respect to a current tenant, but overall the Port of Vancouver will remain Canada’s gateway for agricultural exports to the world.”

Check next week’s issue of the Manitoba Co-operator for more on this story.

— Allan Dawson reports for the Manitoba Co-operator from Miami, Man.

The port’s reply

The Port of Vancouver issued the following statement Thursday in response to concerns raised by the Western Grain Elevator Association on how the Port of Vancouver operates:

As a Canada Port Authority, we have a federal mandate established under the Canada Marine Act, to enable Canada’s trade through the Port of Vancouver, while protecting the environment and considering local communities. It’s a complex mandate that requires balancing many opposing interests of a broad range of stakeholders, ultimately having to make decisions in the best interests of Canadians generally.

Many of the issues raised by the WGEA — governance, board nominations, and having to consider the impacts of port operations on local communities — are dictated by the Canada Marine Act, and therefore beyond the control of the port authority.

In order to fulfill our federal mandate, we need to ensure port infrastructure is in place to handle growing international trade. For more than a decade, there has been an incredible amount of investment in the port and the surrounding gateway to benefit all terminals, including grain terminals. As a result, we have seen record grain cargo through the port in recent years, and many terminals have invested to grow their operations.

In planning for future infrastructure investment, we consider independent forecasts and consult with industry. Many of the current projects under way are specifically to build capacity for the grain sector, and others will address the increasing demand for container trade. Interestingly, containers are used to ship a significant amount of grain so those container capacity projects will benefit the agricultural sector. Any fees that we may charge terminal operators for common-use infrastructure improvements are subject to consultation with those operators.

Our biggest challenge in the Vancouver area is that there is not enough industrial land for all this growth, and so we have to make the best use of what we have. That may require difficult choices with respect to a current tenant, but overall the Port of Vancouver will remain Canada’s gateway for agricultural exports to the world.

CORRECTION, Feb. 18: Typo fixed in paragraph 14 to replace “wouldn’t” with “couldn’t.”

UPDATE, Feb. 19: Updated to include statements from the Port of Vancouver and the Saskatchewan government plus further clarifications.

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Why it matters: Rigorous, readily accessible digital records can be more efficient and reliable than paper records. They can also be solutions to traceability demands and security concerns.

As of June 12, Transport Canada will require digital operation logs in all commercial vehicles. According to the ministry’s website, the move is designed to make it easier and faster to track, manage, share and improve the accuracy of a driver’s hours-of-service record.

Impacts include helping drivers stay within legally allowed driving hours while reducing fatigue, administrative costs, out-of-service detention times, enforcement costs, and others.

Trucking companies and other motor carriers will need to choose, buy, and install certified devices by the June deadline, but the rule won’t apply to all vehicles.

Those hauling grain or fertilizer, for example, will be exempt, in part because of a stipulation permitting conventional trip-log management within a 160-kilometre radius, such as trucks hauling fertilizer locally.

However, many operators are choosing to digitize anyway.

“As a manufacturer of truck bodies and trailers for the agricultural industry, we have definitely seen an increase from our customers in the interest in digital monitoring tools,” says John Broekema, a Guelph-based technical representative with transport equipment manufacturer Walinga.

Aside from electronic logging, examples of attractive in-truck digital infrastructure include monitoring systems for hydraulic oil pressure, hydraulic motor speeds, and surveillance. There is also significant interest in systems that track deliveries, are designed to prevent operational errors, and those that monitor and respond to environmental elements.

Broekema says his company is trying to respond to immediate needs and anticipate “where the market is heading,” particularly regarding the growing importance placed on traceability and what that means for transporters.

Mark Beaven, president and co-founder of EthoGuard, a digital security tool company focused on the agriculture and food sectors, also says the potential for digitally monitoring commercial vehicles goes well beyond drive logs.

Temperatures in livestock trailers, engine performance, driver performance and many other aspects of transportation can be measured.

He says this can help operators make efficiency improvements to their businesses, fix issues on the fly, or provide better evidence of their remedial efforts in cases where something may have gone wrong.

Indeed, the growing need for solutions to traceability demands and improved business practices is the reason his company markets EthoTrac, an online interface augmented by a range of what he calls “plug-and-play” in-truck sensors.

The company has since also begun marketing the same systems to farms as a simplified, all-encompassing way for operators to affordably monitor barns and equipment.

“The industry has many security risks,” says Beaven, listing unauthorized entry, rural crime, biosecurity and cyber vulnerabilities as examples.

“Unfortunately, agriculture gets left behind a little bit…I felt there was a need for a real comprehensive security company.”

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Hydrogen has held potential as an alternative fuel for vehicles for years. It is attractive because the process exhausts only water. The challenge has been to make hydrogen fuel cells that don’t rely on a large amount of platinum to serve as a catalyst in their fuel cells. About 50 grams has been needed per hydrogen-powered vehicle. Typically, vehicles only need about five grams of this rare and precious material. Indeed, only 100 tonnes of platinum are mined annually, in South Africa.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Chemistry have developed a catalyst that doesn’t require such a large quantity of platinum.

“We have developed a catalyst which, in the laboratory, only needs a fraction of the amount of platinum that current hydrogen fuel cells for cars do. We are approaching the same amount of platinum as needed for a conventional vehicle. At the same time, the new catalyst is much more stable than the catalysts deployed in today’s hydrogen powered vehicles,” said Professor Matthias Arenz from the Department of Chemistry.

Sustainable technologies are often challenged by the limited availability of the rare materials that make them possible, which in turn, limits scalability. Due to this current limitation, it is impossible to simply replace the world’s vehicles with hydrogen models overnight.

“The new catalyst can make it possible to roll out hydrogen vehicles on a vastly greater scale than could have ever been achieved in the past,” said Professor Jan Rossmeisl, center leader of the Center for High Entropy Alloy Catalysis at UCPH’s Department of Chemistry.

The new catalyst improves fuel cells significantly, by making it possible to produce more horsepower per gram of platinum. This in turn, makes the production of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles more sustainable.

Because only the surface of a catalyst is active, as many platinum atoms as possible are needed to coat it. A catalyst must also be durable. Herein lies the conflict. To gain as much surface area as possible, today’s catalysts are based on platinum-nano-particles that are coated over carbon. Unfortunately, carbon makes catalysts unstable. The new catalyst is distinguished by being carbon-free. Instead of nano-particles, the researchers have developed a network of nanowires characterized by an abundance of surface area and high durability.

“With this breakthrough, the notion of hydrogen vehicles becoming commonplace has become more realistic. It allows them to become cheaper, more sustainable and more durable,” said Rossmeisl.

The research results have been published in Nature Materials.

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With consumers panic-buying, there has been increased demand for pulses, as many are non-perishable, Mosnaim said.

“These products will be there for ages,” he said, suspecting many consumers may very well be unsure as to how to prepare pulses.

And with spring arriving, other consumers could shift away from pulses to fresh produce.

However, there’s one angle especially worrying to Mosnaim: transportation. He’s concerned about the transportation system breaking down under a COVID-19 pandemic — including imports, with returning cargo ships lacking the goods they would be normally carry on backhaul.

Then there’s the issue of exports, as rail blockades resulted in lengthy delays at Canada’s ports — especially at Vancouver, which handles the bulk of outbound shipments.

On top of the backlog caused by the blockades were issues created by the late harvest, the strike at Canadian National Railway in November, and weather-related problems along rail lines during the winter.

Together with these transportation issues, Mosnaim said there could be problems in getting supplies to farms for spring planting, such as fertilizer.

“This will be very interesting to see what happens,” he said.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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High performance rail runs much faster than today’s passenger trains, but without the burden on farmland and rural communities of high speed rail.

Why it matters: The province’s proposal to build an $11 billion high speed rail link from London, through Kitchener and to Toronto will use prime farmland and cut off farms and communities because there can be no level crossings with high speed rail.

Intercityrail.org, an organization of farmers, rail experts and concerned urban citizens put together three meetings on high speed rail recently along the London-Kitchener corridor where the trains would run. Concerned citizens packed the Tavistock Community Hall during the first of the meetings.

The proposed line, and indeed the only option being considered by the environmental assessment, runs from London and follows the electricity corridor straight to Kitchener, passing near Thorndale, Tavistock and New Hamburg.

Ken Westcar, a long-time rail watcher and transportation researcher from Woodstock, said high speed rail is not what people are looking for. They want a rail system that works better than it does now, which would be much less expensive than building a whole new high speed rail corridor.

“This is being sold like it’s a train set,” by the government, said Westcar. “You just have to put down track and run trains over it. But it is very very complex and is very difficult to engineer and execute.”

It’s also costly, with the price tag of phase 1 from Toronto to London budgeted at $11 billion by the province. Phase 2 would run from London to Windsor and would bring the total cost to over $20 billion.

“We can’t find any logic to it. Is it a political situation where the provincial government is a high speed rail club wannabe?” he asked.

High performance rail is a good alternative, he says, running at speeds up to 175 km per hour, which is the point at which level crossings at roads can be maintained so communities and farms aren’t cut off from each other. It can also run on the existing lines. American rail is moving in the direction of faster trains than now, but not high speed rail, he said.

Agriculture likely to get a seat at advisory table

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), which has come out firmly against high speed rail in its current form, has a verbal commitment that agriculture will get a seat at the advisory committee set up by the provincial government to hear from aboriginal groups and other levels of government.

“It’s a small win for agriculture,” said Crispin Colvin, an OFA board member, who is in charge of the high speed rail file for the organization. He has some trepidation that a seat will be made for agriculture until someone is appointed by the province to represent the sector.

“From the OFA perspective high speed rail downloads all associated problems with not one benefit,” to rural communities, he said.

He also said that a comprehensive and integrated transportation system is needed for the province and the OFA is calling for a study of the benefits and costs of high speed rail.

Intercityrail.org has convinced affected municipal councils to call for the environmental assessment of high speed rail to include other options. It hopes to convince London to do the same.

The high speed rail plan is a significant part of the governing Liberal’s June election platform. The Progressive Conservative party has said it will follow the process through to the end of the environmental assessment. The NDP has supported the idea of high speed rail, but have not made it a major part of its election platform.

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