Reading Time: 2 minutes Cargill may run a pool for western Canadian farmers’ spring wheat in 2012 and will also be ready to offer farmers forward price contracts for their grains in an open market, the president of the company’s Canadian division said on Thursday. If a government bill to strip the Canadian Wheat Board of its monopoly as […] Read more
Cargill considering a 2012 Prairie wheat pool
CWB supporters take to Parliament Hill
Reading Time: 2 minutes Supporters of the Canadian Wheat Board took their protest to Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, in a last-ditch effort to sway legislators as the bill to deregulate the board moves toward third reading. Several CWB directors and a few Prairie grain farmers urged the Conservative government to drop plans to end the CWB’s marketing […] Read more
CWB bill clears second reading in Commons
Reading Time: 2 minutes A government bill to end the Canadian Wheat Board’s grain monopoly cleared another stage in the House of Commons on Monday, as Ottawa races to make the most important change to the Prairie grain industry since the Second World War. The Conservative government’s bill passed second reading, surviving NDP and Liberal motions to halt it, […] Read more
Sask. won’t ban canola from fields with clubroot
Reading Time: 2 minutes Saskatchewan will not force its first two farms infested with clubroot disease to stop growing canola for a number of years, as some Alberta municipalities have done, a provincial official said Wednesday. Two farmers in north-central Saskatchewan found symptoms of clubroot, which cuts crop yields, on their plants this autumn. The government in Saskatchewan, Canada’s […] Read more
Canadian crops approved for U.S. biodiesel
Reading Time: 2 minutes The U.S. federal Environmental Protection Agency approved the use of Canadian crops such as canola and corn in U.S. biofuels Thursday, in a move that lifted Canadian canola prices and may help the U.S. meet its ambitious targets for biofuels. The EPA’s designation of Canadian crops as a renewable biomass will allow U.S. biofuel makers […] Read more
Prairies to grow more wheat, barley: CWB
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Canadian Wheat Board raised its 2011-12 outlook for wheat and barley on Friday, as a warm, dry summer looks to produce bigger harvests than a year ago. Spring floods left an estimated six million acres unplanted across the Prairies, but a hot summer with timely rains has helped crops in Alberta and most of […] Read more
Wheat board asks Ottawa to pay shutdown costs
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Canadian Wheat Board has asked the federal government to pay “hundreds of millions of dollars” in penalties for cancelled grain contracts and other expenses that it says would arise if it shuts down next year when its marketing monopoly ends. If Ottawa removes the board’s monopoly to buy and sell Western Canada’s wheat, durum […] Read more
Ottawa eyes regulating access to grain handlers
Reading Time: 2 minutes The federal government is considering a request by the Canadian Wheat Board for regulated access to private grain handlers once the board loses its monopoly, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Friday — but he added that such access may not be enforceable. Canada’s Conservative government, which holds a majority of seats in the House of […] Read more
Government may fund CWB’s move to open market
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Canadian government would consider giving the Canadian Wheat Board short-term capital to help it adjust to an open market once Ottawa removes its grain monopoly, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Wednesday. Ritz, speaking to reporters in Winnipeg, said funding would depend on the board presenting a suitable business plan. “We’ll have a look at […] Read more
CWB to conduct farmer vote on monopoly
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Canadian Wheat Board will hold a farmers’ vote on the future of its marketing monopoly on Prairie wheat and barley, in a last-ditch bid to stop Ottawa from opening up the trade to competition. The CWB said Tuesday that the plebiscite on whether to retain the world’s last major agricultural monopoly, will take place […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
