(Jade Markus photo for CNS Canada)

Washouts shut Hudson Bay Railway for shipping season

Reading Time: 3 minutes Flooding and rail bed washouts on sections of northern Manitoba’s Hudson Bay Railway have led the line’s owner to suspend its operations indefinitely. The closure of the portion of the line running from Amery, Man., about 50 km northeast of Gillam, north to Hudson Bay at Churchill, all but ensures no Prairie grain, other than […] Read more

Sugar beets. (Photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

DLF to buy Syngenta sugar beet seed business

Reading Time: < 1 minute One of the world’s biggest forage seed firms is set to enter the sugar beet seed business by buying Syngenta’s. Swiss ag chemical and seed firm Syngenta announced Thursday it will sell its sugar beet seed business to Danish forage and turf seed producer DLF Seeds for an undisclosed sum. “Sugar beet seeds is a […] Read more


(VillageFarms.com)

Hothouse produce grower to devote site to marijuana

Reading Time: 2 minutes Canada’s only publicly traded greenhouse produce-growing company plans to put up one of its British Columbia greenhouses for a new venture in cannabis production. Vancouver-based Village Farms announced Tuesday it has partnered with Victoria-based medical cannabis producer/processor Emerald Health Therapeutics in a 50/50 joint venture to grow cannabis for medical use and, pending changes to […] Read more

(Gloria Solano-Aguilar photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

New Manitoba PED case pushes envelope

Reading Time: 2 minutes Southeastern Manitoba’s latest on-farm cases of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) include one outside the buffer zones in which earlier cases have been found. According to Manitoba Pork, the province’s chief veterinary officer (CVO) on Wednesday confirmed positive tests for PED on a hog nursery operation outside an existing five-kilometre buffer zone. That case — along […] Read more


GrainsConnect Canada, whose terminal under construction at Maymont, Sask., is shown here, plans to open an elevator at Huxley, Alta. in 2019. (GrainsConnect.com)

GrainsConnect picks second Alberta terminal site

Reading Time: < 1 minute The joint venture between Australia’s GrainCorp and Japan’s Zen-Noh Grain is taking its Prairie grain handling model to southern Alberta. GrainsConnect Canada announced plans Thursday to build a fourth Prairie high-throughput grain terminal on Canadian National (CN) Railway track at Huxley, Alta., about 75 km southeast of Red Deer. The company — which expects to […] Read more



(Staff photo)

Federal food policy consultations underway

Reading Time: 2 minutes The long-discussed-and-debated notion of a public pan-Canadian food policy has taken a move forward with a new online survey from the federal government. Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay on Monday announced an initial round of consultations and called on the public to “share their input to help shape a food policy that will cover the entire […] Read more



(Scott Bauer photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

PED cases fan out in southeastern Manitoba

Reading Time: 2 minutes Three more farms in southeastern Manitoba have been confirmed with cases of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) — all of them outside the buffer area in which six previous infected sites were confirmed earlier this month. Two farms, a sow operation and a finisher operation “linked by live pig movements,” were confirmed with PED Friday, followed […] Read more

Nova Scotia’s incumbent agriculture minister Keith Colwell, shown here at left, will return to the legislature after Tuesday’s election. (NovaScotia.ca/agri)

Nova Scotia ag minister, critic keep seats in election

Reading Time: < 1 minute Nova Scotia’s incumbent agriculture minister and lead ag critic have both hung onto their seats in an election which saw the governing Liberals return to power with a slightly slimmer majority. Preliminary results from Tuesday’s election show Premier Stephen McNeil’s Liberals elected in 27 ridings — down from 34 at the government’s dissolution — followed […] Read more