Reading Time: 6 minutes What if Canadian farmers had a choice of more than just CN and CP rail to move their grain? Imagine the opportunities our agriculture would have if we weren’t restricted because of the limited trackage to the coasts, a shortage of hopper cars, a lack of pulling power, and increasing competition from oil and other […] Read more
Moving Canadian products to China – by railway
Is it really so impossible to think about a rail line linking Canada with the economic hubs of Asia?
Our failing price system for grain
Many growers feel a corrupted basis is underpaying them for commodities
Reading Time: 7 minutes Farmers need to be asking tough questions about how our grain is priced, and we must not be satisfied without full answers. Farmers continue to be confounded by “basis.” Their complaints include the volatility in basis as well as a lack of transparency in how basis is calculated. As well, many farmers believe that the […] Read more
Canada meets climate change
It’s time to stop unscientific denials, and to get on with the job of preparing our farms for the real changes that are coming
Reading Time: 6 minutes How will climate change affect Prairie agriculture in the future? This was the question the Alberta Institute of Agrologists presented to a trio of University of Manitoba (U of M) researchers last year, including Brian Amiro, a soil scientist specializing in agricultural meteorology and climatology; Christine Rawluk, research development co-ordinator with the National Centre for […] Read more
Winning with Team Canada
Applying the lessons learned by farmers on overseas trade missions is the shrewdest marketing move you can make this year
Reading Time: 7 minutes Last issue I disputed the marketing ability of most Canadian grain producers. I argued that what most farmers, advisers, and the agriculture industry overall calls marketing is simply price taking, so it is not true marketing. That is not to say, though, that there aren’t farmers who are true marketers. Here are the thoughts of […] Read more
More to grain marketing than price
Making your product available to customers is likely more important than price over the long-term
Reading Time: 6 minutes Correction: Mar. 6, 2015 – Without a doubt, the biggest fallacy about Canada’s grain producers is that they are good marketers. I would argue instead that few grain growers actually have real marketing expertise, and even fewer actually market what they produce. Grain producers who have spent many hours or days attending marketing groups, courses, […] Read more
Who’s buying up Canadian farmland?
Are non-farmers snapping up too much Canadian farmland? Nobody knows, especially in Ottawa
Reading Time: 5 minutes Again this winter, ownership of farmland is a heated topic in coffee shops across rural Canada. Rumours abound. Sometimes, it’s foreign buyers who are said to be gobbling up huge chunks of prime farmland, paying prices that Canadian farmers can’t afford. Other times, it’s pension funds or rich non-farm investors. Whoever tells the stories, the […] Read more
Canada on the fringe of the grain export market
In a world where a country’s market power starts with its grain storage capacity, we’re losing ground fast
Reading Time: 6 minutes Canada’s performance, its objectives and its market power as a grain producer and exporter have changed significantly since the mid-1900s. Unfortunately those changes have not always been positive. In 1966 Alex McCalla, who was then at the University of Minnesota but who would go on to become one of the world’s top economists studying agricultural […] Read more
Australia’s approach to grain co-ops
Owned by 4,200 farmers, the giant CBH Group adds a whole new dimension to phrases like value-adding and diversification
Reading Time: 6 minutes Given the demise of the prairie pools and the recent sales of a number of Canada’s new-generation co-operative grain terminals, it would be understandable if many Canadian farmers, grain traders, farm advisers and policy makers believe co-operative grain marketing ventures are simply not viable in today’s world. Just don’t try and tell that to Western […] Read more
Farm debt ratio in Canada could create an agricultural ‘bust’
Will history repeat itself, with a sell-off fuelled by farm debt?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Are we heading into another bust in agriculture, as happened in the late 1920s and in the 1980s? This is the fear of some farmers, and of some agricultural economists too. George Brinkman, professor emeritus at the University of Guelph, believes Canadian farmers are seriously over-leveraged and that there simply is not enough farm income […] Read more
The paradox of off-farm income
We all knew off-farm income is reshaping Canada’s farms. But who knew large farms are affected most?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has released its farm income forecast for 2013 and 2014. Not surprisingly, in view of our record grains production in 2013 and rising livestock prices, its 2013 farm income estimates remain at historically high levels. AAFC pegs average total farm family income in 2013 at $128,517. This is 19 per cent higher […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
