On January 1, Canadian farmers held 11.1 million cattle and calves on farms, down 2.1 per cent from a year prior, StatCan said in livestock estimates released today. It's the smallest cattle herd since January 1, 1989.

Canadian cattle herd reaches lowest level since 1989
Cattle weights supporting decline in production

Best practices at tagging time easiest way to not lose them
Tags that go into cattle’s ears properly are more likely to stay there and not cause problems with traceability
Reading Time: 2 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – The Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) has launched a new campaign to provide more information to farmers on how to retain tags on cattle. The challenge with cattle tagging is that at some point in their life, they can lose their iconic yellow button tags, and that’s a problem for the traceability […] Read more

New communications manager joins Canadian Cattle Association
Carol Reynolds joined the CCA as communications manager in early January
Reading Time: 3 minutes The Canadian Cattle Association has a new teammate. Carol Reynolds is the group’s new communications manager who started the job Jan. 4. “Agriculture is literally in my blood,” said Reynolds, who grew up on a mixed family farm near Nipawin, Sask. “I’ve got a lot of fond memories of the farm, pitching bales and picking […] Read more

Prairie forecast: Mild start, then a chance of storms
Issued Feb. 21, covering Feb. 21 to 28, 2024
Sunshine prevailed a fair bit more over the last forecast period than expected and so did the milder temperatures. Oh, sure there were a couple of cold nights, especially over the eastern half of the prairies, but overall, temperatures ended up being about 2 to 4 C warmer than what was forecasted.

Klassen: Feeder market shows signs of herd expansion
Some buyers suggest some heifers are being purchased for breeding
For the week ending February 17, Western Canadian prices for yearlings and backgrounded cattle were quoted $2-$4/cwt higher than seven days earlier.

New farm income record set in 2023, estimates suggest
Despite challenges like drought and war, Canadian farms proved resilient
Canadian farm income may have set a new record in 2023. That's according to the official 2023 and 2024
estimates released February 16 by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Feed grain weekly: Buyers waiting longer to purchase more grain
U.S. corn shipments continue to put pressure on feed prices
Buying activity for feed barley and feed wheat in Western Canada is moving slowly and prices continue to decline, according to Susanne Leclerc, owner of Market Master Ltd. in Edmonton.

Farm employee, employer’s perceptions differ on worker retention
Ag domestic labour gap will increase 15 per cent by 2030 as older workers retire: CAHRC
Manual labour and long hours may be less of a deterrent to farm workers than farmers think, a new report suggests.

U.S. livestock: Livestock futures turn lower on pressure from equity markets
Strong U.S. dollar adds pressure to cattle, hog futures
Chicago Mercantile Exchange livestock futures turned lower on Tuesday, on pressure from the equity markets after government data showed U.S. inflation slowed less than expected in January.

Number of US farms falls and size increases, census shows
Number of acres in production falls by 20 million
Farms in the U.S. continued to get larger and the number of farms fell between 2017 and 2022, new data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed on Tuesday.