The National Farmers Union is warning of sweeping changes to Canadian grain regulation it sees tucked into federal legislation meant to put through the successor deal to NAFTA. Bill C-4, the implementing legislation for the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), passed second reading Feb. 6 and came back without amendment Feb. 27 from the Commons standing committee […] Read more
NFU sees red flags in CUSMA bill for grain growers
Bibeau urged to 'correct mistakes' in NAFTA 2.0-enabling legislation
Feed weekly outlook: Soft demand weighs on prices
MarketsFarm — Feed grain prices on the Prairies remain soft ahead of spring planting, due to quiet demand from feedlots. “Feedlots are full of grain right now,” Brandon Motz of CorNine Commodities at Lacombe, Alta. said, explaining that there’s currently a lot of grain in feeding pipelines. “Spring replacement into feedlots has been really slow.” […] Read more
Digital supercluster backs precision fungicide development
Project aims at wheat leaf rust, reducing pesticide load
A West Coast ag tech company in the crop pest control business is setting its sights on wheat leaf rust, with support from one of Canada’s five research superclusters — but not the cluster you might expect. Out of the five federally-supported superclusters launched in early 2018, Protein Industries Canada has been most closely linked […] Read more
Seed pilot project unveiled
The new Seed Variety Use Agreement (SVUA) pilot project, unveiled in Winnipeg Feb. 25, will demonstrate the benefits of farmers paying breeders a royalty for seed saved for planting. But the Prairies’ five wheat and barley commissions have “significant concern” about the project, they said in a news release. The SVUA pilot is being organized […] Read more
Crop variety reports now available
Reading Time: < 1 minute This year’s crop varietal reports are now available. The reports are designed to help producers make sound decisions when considering which silage, cereal and oilseed varieties to grow. “Varieties of cereal and oilseed crops for Alberta provide information on cereal and oilseed variety performance within Alberta and northeastern British Columbia,” said crop research technologist Alex […] Read more
Tax credits available for cereal checkoffs
Reading Time: < 1 minute Cereal farmers who pay Alberta Wheat’s and Alberta Barley’s checkoff are eligible for Scientific Research & Experimental Development Fund (SR&ED) tax credits. For wheat, the tax credit is 31 per cent while for barley, it’s 13 per cent. The federal program encourages R&D investment by giving claimants tax credits for their expenditures on eligible R&D […] Read more
Wheat and barley groups eye merger
Committee to investigate pros and cons, with full membership of both groups to vote on the merger bid
Reading Time: 3 minutes After first amalgamating their administrative teams and then their senior management, Alberta Wheat and Alberta Barley are now considering a full merger. But the notion of scrapping their individual boards and creating a single cereal crop board is still in its early stages, say the chairs of the two farm groups. “The resolution came up […] Read more
Feed weekly outlook: Softening barley market to stabilize
MarketsFarm — Feed barley bids in Western Canada have softened over the past few weeks, but should stabilize as the spring approaches. “I don’t think there’s a lot of potential to push this thing much higher, and I don’t think the bottom will fall out either. What you see is what you get,” Matt Froehlich, […] Read more
Lower grain production predicted from Europe in 2020
MarketsFarm — European grain production is expected to be down slightly in 2020, according to the first forecast for the year from European trade association Coceral. In the report, released Thursday, Coceral pegged total grain production for the European Union and United Kingdom in 2020 at 302.7 million tonnes, which would be down from the […] Read more
Cash advances take a ‘very dramatic’ jump, say administrators
Farmers can now borrow more against crops in their bins, and that’s what they’re doing
Reading Time: 4 minutes There’s been a “very dramatic” spike in applications for cash advances since Ottawa upped the amount farmers can borrow against crops in their bins. “We’ve had probably an extra 500 applications this year, and it’s not just new producers to the program — it’s also increased usage of the program by our existing customers,” said […] Read more
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