Reading Time: 11 minutes As you drive throughout the region surrounding Edmonton, canola is inescapable. It’s absolutely everywhere. And looking at the crops, it’s easy to understand why. With long days, cool nights and adequate rainfall, this is canola country pure and simple, and in most seasons, the crop flourishes under nearly ideal conditions. Canola has also been a crop […] Read more
Joining the clubroot club
The disease is escaping beyond its Edmonton hot zone, and the rest of the Prairie region must get its response right
Make the most from the 2014 market
Grain markets aren’t going to bounce back any time soon, says Calgary-based market adviser Errol Anderson. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t wins to be made
Reading Time: 8 minutes Grain and oilseed prices are reeling from massive global crops, and the growing consensus is that we may not see a bull run in the market at any time in the new crop year. In fact, the USDA’s latest long-range forecasts have got some analysts predicting we may not see another bull for 10 years. […] Read more
Fungicide question on wheat is settled
For these farmers, it’s every acre, every year… but always at the right crop stage
Reading Time: 8 minutes Kristjan Hebert knows exactly what his target is when he is spraying fungicide on his wheat. “One hundred per cent,” says the Moosomin, Sask.-area grain grower, who farms with his father. “Our goal is to get it all covered at the heading stage.” That’s a far cry from just a few years ago, when the […] Read more
Where to next? Predicting the future of agriculture
Someone is always trying to predict the future of agriculture. You might even be tempted to believe them... at your own peril
Reading Time: 7 minutes Human beings just can’t stand to feel that they’re being left in the dark. There’s something about the unknown that flat out bothers us. We go to enormous lengths to try to see what might be coming next, and we divert a big pile of our cash and an even bigger pile of our even […] Read more
The big change
It’s a safe bet that today’s tough market outlook is already fuelling the next big wave of farm innovation. But which innovation?
Reading Time: 9 minutes It wasn’t so long ago that the talk at farm meetings was of how everything was different this time. Demand would never fade. The emerging middle classes of the world’s developing nations were hungry and they were ready to pay. Plus, as if that wasn’t enough, new government policies in favour of biofuels had shot […] Read more
Grain drain
Winnipeg has long reigned over Western Canada’s grain trade — but can it keep the crown?
Reading Time: 5 minutes No one noticed,” author and historian Allan Levine says. “We’re talking about arguably the most important business institution in the city’s history, and it barely ranked notice in the city media.” For Levine, author of The exchange: 100 Years of Trading Grain in Winnipeg, it was the moment he realized the grain trade in Winnipeg […] Read more
Prairie crossroads
Reading Time: 7 minutes How far can consolidation go? Is it inevitable someday a handful of operations will farm virtually all of Canada? They stir Canada’s soul. Under a western sky, those sweeping, wide fields of Saskatchewan feel like home even to Canadians who have never set foot west of Ontario or east of British Columbia. They are the […] Read more
Labour leaders
Understanding your workforce — and exactly why you need them — adds up to a pro-business staffing plan for these farmers
Reading Time: 7 minutes Let’s just call it interesting, at least at the start. The “it” is something that happens in Doug Berry’s farming life every fall at harvest time. The crop is in the field, it’s ready to come off, and Doug is about to see the results of a year’s hard work and careful planning by him, […] Read moreBreak the cycle
In every industry, it’s the decisions made in good times that sink the ship when times turn tough. Here’s how to keep ahead of the curve
Reading Time: 8 minutes Picture yourself in a boat on a river. It’s a fine summer day and you’re drifting lazily along, without a spot of trouble in sight. The water is smooth, the current is steady, and you nod to the locals as you pass them by on the shore, thinking how much luckier you are than them […] Read moreFuture farming
If you’re in the agriculture industry the prevailing wisdom is clear. Global agriculture has an enormous — maybe insurmountable — challenge ahead of it. By 2050, our global population will reach nine billion.
Reading Time: 5 minutes Big Idea Christophe Pelletier: The key challenge is going to be feeding the animals, not the people. Everything is so much more global and interconnected that there really is no such thing as a local solution to these issues — and that has implications all over the place. For example let’s look at the implications […] Read moreA message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
