Reading Time: 3 minutes In 2009, western Canadian farm groups submitted a report to Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz outlining options for a program to provide security to producers when grain buyers default on payments. The main options were fund-based, insurance-based or bond-based programs. It was not that there wasn’t already a form of protection in place. The Canadian Grain […] Read more
Farmers still waiting for better default protection on grain sales
Leaving feed mills exempt from coverage under existing licensing and bonding puts farmers at risk to losses
A familiar story from south of the line
The arguments from both railways and their critics are the same, and so is the result — a clogged system with farmers paying the price
Reading Time: 2 minutes Officials aren’t going to do much to make the trains run on time to alleviate the 2014 ag rail problems. Farmers and elevators need to prepare to suffer through 2015 — and maybe 2016 and beyond. That’s my prediction after listening to nine straight hours of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board hearing on the railroad […] Read more
The formula for success on your farm
Straight from the hip: The challenges in farming are numerous and diverse, but Nuffield Scholar Jamie McCoy has found successful farmers have a common approach
Reading Time: 3 minutes When Jamie McCoy, my guest from Wales, sat around our fire last summer, she glowed with passion for the family farm. A fellow Nuffield Scholar, her project was to look at opportunities for small holdings. The release of her report in 2014, the International Year of Family Farming, could not be timelier. Of course the […] Read more
What lies beneath your feet is a marvel of nature
It’s believed native grasslands contain plants a century old, their tillers advancing inch by inch to create a perpetual ecosystem
Reading Time: 3 minutes The other day, the Dickinson Research Extension Center became home to an unstoppable force that is going to drill a well. In this case, an oil well. The spot selected is in the middle of a native grass pasture. Who knows the age of that native grass, but certainly the plants were there long before […] Read more
The campaign to whitewash farm and ranch vocabulary
Cargill is apparently no longer in the business of ‘slaughtering’ cattle
Reading Time: 2 minutes Farmers and ranchers have a well-deserved reputation for straight talk. Saying what you mean and meaning what you say, after all, were essential elements in the handshake deals that were the hallmark of rural business for generations. They still are. Now, however, some folks outside the nation’s fields and fences are working overtime to wash […] Read more
Women should take measures to avoid a hard landing
Planning ahead for your business is critical for when the day a crisis hits, or when you want to make big changes
Reading Time: 3 minutes I do a lot of flying and still to this day find the takeoff rather exciting. After 35 years of travel there has never been an incident with takeoff — but the landings have been mixed. There were quite a few times when we could not land because of weather, and times when the pilot […] Read more
The ‘new’ wore off of ‘normal’ pretty quickly
The grain industry may have gotten a little too optimistic after last year’s whopper of a crop
Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s easy to get a little giddy when things go much better than expected. For example, take last year’s bin buster of a crop. By any measure, it was an astounding production feat. Western Canadian farmers shattered all previous records on most major crops, growing a whopping 76 million tonnes, 50 per cent higher than […] Read more
Schoepp: Farms on the war front
Straight from the hip: Food is a weapon of war, and farmers in Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine are the latest pawns in this awful charade
Reading Time: 3 minutes It is an anxious time in our little world. The Internet brings us to the front lines every day as we watch and anticipate the outcome of conflict around the globe. As I scanned the news, I thought of the suffering of women and children — who asked no part in this charade. And I […] Read more
Should Ag Minister Ritz tackle the railways next?
Gerry Ritz won the wheat board battle, now it’s time to find a fix for grain transportation woes
Reading Time: 2 minutes Gerry Ritz slew the Canadian Wheat Board, but can he rein in the railways? If anyone can, it’s Canada’s 33rd minister of agriculture. It won’t be easy, but neither was ending the wheat board’s 69-year-old monopoly. Ritz had help. Key was Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who had a deep disdain for the board and made […] Read more
Doing a better job of turning grass into grain — and saying so
Growing more forage is the right thing to do. Is the beef industry prepared if it happens?
Reading Time: 3 minutes If you’re looking for proof that there is no such thing as bad publicity, beef may be a good example. For years it’s been painted as a public health and environmental villain, and recently there were more reports on how bovine frontal and rearward methane emissions are a major source of climate-altering greenhouse gas. All […] Read more