Grain Farmers of Ontario chair Mark Brock speaks with media Friday on the front lawn of MPP Deb Matthews’ riding office in London, Ont. (Ralph Pearce photo)

Pearce: GFO goes informative rather than inflammatory

It’s not that farmers in Ontario aren’t frustrated and angry concerning legislation aimed at curbing the use of neonicotinoid seed treatments. They are. However, during a protest Friday in front of Ontario Deputy Premier Deb Matthews’ riding office in London, executives with the Grain Farmers of Ontario and roughly 35 farmers took a more proactive […] Read more


(Lisa Guenther photo)

U.S. grains: Short-covering sparks rally in wheat

Chicago | Reuters –– U.S. wheat futures rallied 3.4 per cent on Monday, bouncing off of their lowest in nearly three weeks, on a round of short-covering, traders said. “Frankly this market was struggling to go down,” Arlan Suderman, senior market analyst at Water Street Solutions, said. “When you run out of sellers because they […] Read more

Farm and Country editor John Phillips, 88

A memorial is scheduled Saturday in Toronto for journalist John Phillips, who served 25 years as editor of the Ontario farming journal Farm and Country. Phillips died “peacefully” Wednesday at Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga at age 88, according to his obituary. According to Farm and Country’s successor magazine Better Farming, Phillips was the now-defunct […] Read more


(HuskyEnergy.com)

U.S. seeks middle ground on biofuel targets, pleasing few

New York | Reuters — U.S. regulators on Friday unveiled much-delayed biofuel targets that sought to strike a middle ground for the nation’s contentious renewable fuels policy but still met with threats of legal action from two of the biggest industries, oil and corn. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided to raise its previous target […] Read more

(WHO.int)

WHO cancer unit to analyze 2,4-D

Reuters — The World Health Organization is set to examine a widely used pesticide and agribusiness is bracing for bad news, less than three months after the group classified another popular herbicide as “probably” cancer-causing. Twenty-four scientists representing WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) will analyze scientific findings regarding links between cancer in […] Read more



treated corn seed

Free guide available on dealing with treated seed

Guide offers stewardship practices on how to handle, store, transport and use treated seed

Reading Time: < 1 minute A new Guide to Treated Seed Stewardship provides a one-stop resource for those involved with handling, storage, transportation, and use of treated seed. Developed by a group of seed industry professionals, the guide offers best management practices for insecticide- and fungicide-treated seed. It is designed to complement CropLife Canada’s seed treatment operations standards, which provide uniform […] Read more



(Photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

U.S. EPA proposing temporary pesticide-free zones for honeybees

Reuters — U.S. environmental regulators on Thursday proposed a rule that would create temporary pesticide-free zones to protect commercial honeybees, which are critical to food production and have been dying off at alarming rates. The restrictions are aimed at protecting bees from “pesticides that are acutely toxic” to them, and would cover foliar applications when […] Read more