Reading Time: 2 minutes (Reuters) — Canadian hog farmers look to return to profitability later this year, slowing the pace of herd downsizing as high hog prices outweigh the negative effects of a surging Canadian dollar, industry analysts said Thursday. Hog farmers have suffered from several mostly unprofitable years because of high feed costs, a strong dollar and the […] Read more
Analysts see return to profits for hog farmers
Grain rally less speculative than in 2008: Ritz
Reading Time: 2 minutes (Reuters) — The recent rally in grain and oilseed prices is based more on concerns about crop levels than on speculation by investors, Canada’s agriculture minister said on Monday. Prices of crops such as wheat, corn, soybeans and canola are at their highest levels in more 2-1/2 years amid flooding in Australia and dryness in […] Read more
Food inflation, bad weather to lift agribusiness
Reading Time: 3 minutes (Reuters) — Shares of North American agricultural companies, from fertilizer makers to grain handlers, will likely surge this year as weather-related crop damage causes global food price inflation. With grain prices already around two-year highs to start the year, fertilizer makers like PotashCorp and Mosaic are among the big winners, since the more money farmers […] Read more
Canola meal exports up, U.S. to ease barriers
Reading Time: 2 minutes (Reuters) — Canadian exports of canola meal to the United States have picked up in the current marketing year, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) looks to ease restrictions on imports of animal feed with salmonella bacteria. The FDA posted a draft policy on its website last August that would limit its enforcement […] Read more
Prairie farmers seen seeding more flax
Reading Time: 2 minutes (Reuters) –– Canadian farmers will look to plant more flax this spring, but tight supplies in the meantime will slice exports to a five- or six-year low in the 2010-11 crop year, crop analysts said Monday. Canada, the world’s leading grower and exporter of flax, saw production fall to an 18-year low of 423,000 tonnes […] Read more
Wheat, seen overbought, falls by most in a month
Reading Time: 2 minutes (Reuters) — U.S. wheat futures posted their steepest decline in about a month on Tuesday as investors booked profits and made sales on a market that appeared overbought after an 11 per cent rise this month. A stronger U.S. dollar, potentially dampening commodity exports priced in the greenback, accelerated wheat’s slide early, but closer to […] Read more
Pulse firm Alliance sees grains winning acres in 2011
Reading Time: 2 minutes (Reuters) — A price spike in grains will reverse some acreage gains by legumes in Western Canada next year, but over the long term, the shift to crops such as lentils will persist, a leading legume exporter says. Rising demand for protein in developing countries underpins the outlook for legumes, as for grains and fertilizer. […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
