Reading Time: 3 minutes CNS Canada — Cash bids for Canadian wheat dropped during the week ended Friday, as the combination of a rising Canadian dollar and dropping U.S. futures weighed on prices across the Prairies. Average Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS) wheat prices were C$12-$16 per tonne lower, with bids ranging from about $204 per tonne in north-central […] Read more
Prairie wheat bids down with U.S. futures, rising loonie
Prices to rise as yield prospects drop for durum
Reading Time: < 1 minute CNS Canada — Mounting dryness concerns in some of the prime durum-growing regions of Western Canada have likely already cut into yield prospects, which should support prices going forward. Canadian farmers intended to plant 5.5 million acres of durum this year, well above the 4.75 million seeded the previous year and the largest crop since […] Read more
Plenty of blame to go around for grain shipping debacle
A year into the great grain fiasco, it’s no longer only about the railways
Reading Time: 6 minutes UPDATED, June 21, 2015: The 2013 harvest should have been a time of wild celebration. Prairie farmers had produced a bin-busting crop with a record-smashing 76 million tonnes, and with good crop prices, the entire West should have struck up the music and started to dance. Instead, logistics turned the dream into a nightmare, and […] Read more
Iraq recaptures some grain silos seized by Islamic State
Reading Time: 2 minutes London | Reuters — Iraq has re-taken control of some grain silos previously seized by Islamic State, but most of the grain held cannot be used as militants aim to destroy sites when retreating, a senior grain official said Tuesday. Islamic State, the breakaway al Qaeda group, which declared an Islamic caliphate across parts of […] Read more
Nearby spring wheat charts looking bullish
Reading Time: < 1 minute CNS Canada — Nearby technical signals for MGEX spring wheat futures in Minneapolis have turned bullish, as prices rallied during the first part of June. However, the market remains rangebound from a longer-term perspective. The July wheat contact in Minneapolis has climbed by 50 cents per bushel since June 1, and settled Tuesday at US$5.8275. […] Read more
Prairie oats crop off to a decent start
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — Western Canadian farmers are wrapping up seeding their oats crops, which so far are off to a decent start in many areas. “I know in Manitoba, in the Red River Valley, the oats are off to an excellent start,” said Art Enns, president of the Prairie Oats Growers Association. “In Saskatchewan it’s […] Read more
Wheat bids climb with U.S. futures
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada –– Cash bids for Canadian wheat climbed sharply during the week ended Friday, as a rally in U.S. futures pulled bids up across the Prairies. Average Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS) wheat prices were C$12 to $19 per tonne higher, with bids ranging from about $218 per tonne in north-central Saskatchewan to as […] Read more
Editor’s Desk: Getting rail back on the political agenda
Reading Time: 2 minutes John Diefenbaker was no longer Prime Minister when I got to shake his hand. Still, there was an election in the air, and my father, who distrusted Liberals every bit as much Dief (especially when they were led by Pierre Trudeau) had hauled his four boys to the high school auditorium to hear the great […] Read more
CME bars grain traders for years over wash trades, spoofing
Reading Time: < 1 minute Chicago | Reuters –– CME Group said Friday it barred a grain trader from its markets for three years for executing noncompetitive transactions and suspended another for two years for market manipulation. The traders, Aleksey Vsemirnov and Stephen Duggan, could not immediately be reached for comment. Vsemirnov executed numerous non-competitive transactions in wheat, oats, rice, […] Read more
The Journey: A quick history of shipping grain to port by rail
From Prairie farm to ocean port, our rail lines still shock the imagination with their engineering and bravado
Reading Time: 9 minutes It’s a trip that is so formidable, it weakened the knees of generations of politicians, entrepreneurs and engineers alike. Everybody could tell the northern Great Plains would be an ideal place for growing cereal crops, and they knew too that the world would love to eat what we grow, but getting those crops to port […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
