Reading Time: 3 minutes Last month, U.S. Wheat Associates vice-president Vince Peterson told the annual meeting of the Canada Grains Council in Winnipeg that genetically modified wheat is inevitable. The theory is that higher yields are needed for a hungry world, and to make wheat competitive with corn and soybeans. USWA wants all exporters to agree to simultaneous introduction […] Read more
The Americans Are Giving Us Advice On Wheat Yields?
It’s Time For The Grain Industry To Stop Embracing Change
Reading Time: 3 minutes The good old days weren’t always so good if you were an elevator manager, or especially an elevator manager’s assistant. You had to be pretty handy with a shovel when you were loading a boxcar. Then you had to “cooper” those cars before shipment, sealing the doors with kraft paper and wooden or metal “grain […] Read more
Remembering Don Bousquet
Reading Time: 2 minutes Many readers knew Don Bousquet through his “It’s your business” column inAlberta Farmer,and many more across Western Canada knew his voice, heard twice daily on his Farm Market News market report, broadcast on Prairie radio stations for the past 36 years. Some may also have seen Don in person speaking at farm meetings, and if […] Read more
Editors’ Picks: Mo. soybean grower tops 160 bu./ac.
A southwestern Missouri farmer is the first to have officially cracked the 160 bushels per acre mark for soybean yield. Kip Cullers, who farms at Purdy, about 80 km southeast of Joplin, was confirmed — again — as the world record holder on Oct. 12 by the Missouri Soybean Association (MSA), after the weigh check […] Read more
Editors’ Picks: Viterra not seeking AWB, yet
Speculation in Australia’s business media that Canada’s largest grain company may make a play for the former Australian Wheat Board is so far just speculation, according to Viterra’s CEO. AWB Ltd. agreed late last month to an A$855 million (C$799 million) all-stock takeover bid by its larger Australian rival, GrainCorp. The companies’ wedding is seen […] Read more
The Russian Grain-Export Bear Is Out Of Hibernation
Reading Time: 3 minutes The former Soviet Union may not have been a model of economic efficiency, but there was one thing that it did very well, and that was import grain. In the grain trade heyday of the 1980s, the Soviets would import up to 50 million tonnes a year and distribute it far and wide across the […] Read more
Crop Biotech Booms Here — They Just Can’t Use It
Reading Time: 3 minutes “It was on the 1960s here in Ghent that we discovered molecular biology,” MARC VAN MONTAGU PROFESSOR, U OF GHENT Canadian growers of flax and canola are well aware that most Europeans are not keen on biotechnology in agriculture. But if you’re looking for exceptions, this city in Flanders in the northern region of Belgium […] Read more
Familiar Issues In A “Complicated But Peaceful” Country
Reading Time: 2 minutes Does this sound familiar? A national farm leader delivering a speech in two official languages, and calling for farmers to present a united front to government through a single farm organization rather than through a bunch of commodity groups. Actually, the speech was mainly in a third language – English, for the benefit of a […] Read more
Raising big cattle in a small space
Reading Time: 3 minutes “Some say it’s a problem, but right now it’s not an issue.” DRIES TIMMERMAN BELGIAN BLUE RANCHER Near Ostend, Belgium – Dries Timmerman is one beef producer who does not boast that his animals are “easy calvers,” but he can claim a pretty good calving percentage – 99.9 per cent. Timmerman raises purebred Belgian Blues […] Read more
Serving Agriculture, The Basic Industry
Reading Time: 3 minutes The days of the CBC radio “Farm Broadcast” have passed into history, but many still fondly remember the noon-hour market reports and general agriculture news. In Ontario, the host for 25 years was George Atkins, who passed away Nov. 30 at age 92. In 1975, George was in Zambia to help with a workshop for […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
