Mexico City | Reuters — U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will discuss terms of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico (CUSMA) agreement, which was ratified in 2018, during a visit to Mexico, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday. “We’ll have a summit to discuss terms of the trade agreement treaty… in Mexico,” […] Read more
CUSMA leaders to discuss agreement during Mexico visit
Cash advances’ interest-free portion temporarily raised
APP funds now interest-free for first $250K
The federal government’s low-interest loan guarantee program for Canadian farmers will sweeten the interest-free portion of its offer for the next two program years to help with farm cash flow. Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Thursday announced a temporary increase in the interest-free portion of the Advance Payments Program to $250,000, up from the usual […] Read more
WTO strikes global trade deals deep into overtime
Deals reached on food security, health and fishing; formerly defiant India joins consensus
Geneva | Reuters — The World Trade Organization’s 164 members approved a series of trade agreements early on Friday that included commitments on fish and pledges on health and food security after more than five gruelling days of negotiations. The deals were ground out over five days of bargaining at a conference of more than […] Read more
GM CEO says ‘we are selling every truck we can build’
Rising fuel prices not seen undermining big truck demand, yet
Detroit | Reuters — General Motors CEO Mary Barra said on Monday the automaker is “selling every truck we can build” and expanding North American truck-building capacity, even as U.S. gasoline prices hit record highs. Barra made her comments during the automaker’s annual shareholder meeting. GM is pursuing a two-track strategy: Investing heavily in electric […] Read more
U.S. cowboy poet and veterinarian Baxter Black, 77
Black appeared on Carson, NPR and in Grainews
U.S. cowboy poet, storyteller and veterinarian Baxter Black, whose work was a fixture for years in farm journals including Grainews, died Friday at age 77, his family reported. Born in New York in 1945, Black grew up in southern New Mexico and graduated from Colorado State University in 1969. He later relocated from Colorado to […] Read more
Canada launches offset credits to help tackle emissions
Landfill gas protocols now launched; ag-related protocols soon to follow
Reuters — Canada on Wednesday launched a credit system for greenhouse gas offsets, a major part of its plan to cut carbon emissions, starting with a set of rules stipulating how projects can generate tradeable credits by capturing gas from landfills. The government said protocols for four other sectors including agriculture and forest management are […] Read more
Ontario ag minister returns in another Tory majority
Lisa Thompson retains seat in election
Ontario’s governing Progressive Conservatives will head back to the legislature with their incumbent agriculture minister at the caucus table. Lisa Thompson, Premier Doug Ford’s minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs since June last year, easily held her southwestern riding of Huron-Bruce in Thursday’s provincial election by a spread of 15,594 votes over Liberal challenger […] Read more
Ag funding survey closes June 5
Reading Time: < 1 minute The deadline is looming for farmers to “share thoughts” on what should be the priorities for the next five-year ag funding deal between Ottawa and the provinces. The Next Policy Framework will replace the $3-billion Canadian Agricultural Partnership, which expires next March. The federal, provincial, and territorial ag ministers set out their priorities in November […] Read more
Farm census snapshot: Big farms, big dollars, and not getting any younger
Reading Time: 4 minutes Bigger, more valuable, and older. Those are key words emerging from the latest Census of Agriculture. The broad strokes from the 2021 census confirm trends that are well known: Farms are consolidating and getting bigger, land and other assets are worth more, revenues and expenses are both going up, and the high cost of getting […] Read more
Over half Canada’s farm revenue now goes to biggest farms, census finds
More women operators, more sustainable practices, more growing under glass
While it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the number of larger farms by sales in Canada is rising and the number of smaller farms is declining, Canada’s newest ag census also shows larger farm classes now capturing the majority of total ag revenue. Statistics Canada on Wednesday began releasing data from its 2021 Census of Agriculture, […] Read more
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