Reading Time: 9 minutes It’s 8:28 a.m. on a Monday in early March, two days after Russian president Vladimir Putin has gained parliamentary approval to invade Crimea. Russian troops have rooted themselves in Crimea, and Ukraine has called up its reserves. Scott Shellady and a cluster of traders in the corn options pit at the Chicago Board of Trade […] Read more
Chicago trades up
Volumes soar with electronic trading. But has the board lost touch with fundamentals?
Guenther: Amid tension in Ukraine, positive change sought for farmers
Reading Time: 4 minutes As seeding progresses in Ukraine, farmers are eyeing input prices, markets and weather, just as their counterparts do in other parts of the world. But Ukraine’s farmers have the added worry of whether conflict in the eastern part of the country will boil over. Last week Russian and Ukrainian officials signed an accord agreeing to […] Read more
New interswitching rules more punishment than policy: CN CEO
Reading Time: 4 minutes Given recent federal moves to regulate Canada’s major railways into moving more grain, Claude Mongeau came to Winnipeg Wednesday feeling “a little bit like a general who lost the battle.” Speaking to the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, the CEO of Canadian National Railway (CN) said he was in town to make the case that “regulation […] Read more
Guenther: Farmers’ cash flow concerns feeding wide basis
Reading Time: 3 minutes Saskatoon | Grainews — Prairie farmers have been feeling the pain of a basis wide as the Saskatchewan sky, and the situation isn’t likely to improve any time soon. “We need to get rail movement to tighten supplies and improve these basis levels,” Cliff Jamieson, grains analyst with DTN, told delegates at the Grain Handling […] Read more
Guenther: West Coast’s grain capacity a question mark
Reading Time: 3 minutes Saskatoon | Grainews –– Western Canada’s rail network isn’t the only piece of the grain logistics puzzle that needs attention, farmers heard here at Wednesday’s Grain Handling and Transportation Summit. “If we did solve the rail problem, we have another large problem, and that’s West Coast terminal capacity,” said Richard Gray, a University of Saskatchewan […] Read more
Guenther: Gears grinding on grain freight co-ordination
Reading Time: 4 minutes Saskatoon | Grainews — The Prairie grain industry and railways are likely to behave like the House of Commons as they try to fix logistics problems plaguing the industry, Perry Pellerin told delegates here at the Grain Handling and Transportation Summit. “There’s going to be a lot of finger-pointing. A lot of badgering. Maybe even […] Read more
Guenther: Tensions risk holding back Ukraine’s ag potential
Reading Time: 4 minutes When Mike Lee moved to Ukraine six years ago, he didn’t think he’d end up with a front-row seat to a conflict that could tip into outright war. Lee is an agronomist and agribusiness consultant hailing from the United Kingdom. He’s farmed, taught agriculture at Writtle College in the U.K., and consulted in other countries, […] Read more
Two steps forward
Alberta’s Rhonda and and Brian Headon knew the farm needed diversification. Now, each heads their own very different farm enterprise
Reading Time: 9 minutes It’s the classic Western Canadian love story. Boy and girl meet at a hockey game. Years later, they meet again at Alberta’s Ukrainian Pysanka Festival in Vegreville. They fall in love, they marry, they move back to his family’s farm, and they start a family. Also, like so many farming couples, Brian Headon and Rhonda […] Read more
Persistence key for market access to China, Vilsack says
Reading Time: 2 minutes San Antonio | Grainews –– Gaining market access to China may come down to persistence and patience, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters at Commodity Classic in San Antonio. Achieving market access to China has been easier said than done for the U.S. at times. China has turned back over 600,000 tonnes of U.S. […] Read more
Black Sea tensions stoke concerns over grain exports
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Grainews — Rising tension over increased Russian military presence in the Crimean peninsula has elevated concern in the western grain trade over exports in the near term. “The concerns about exporting wheat and corn definitely are a short-term issue here that could delay some of the shipments out of that region of the […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
