Fruit/Vegetables, Agriculture News & Resources

Wendy’s secures Canadian greenhouse lettuce supply

Alberta grower to provide sandwich, salad lettuce nationwide

By Dave Bedard July 24, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes The Canadian wing of U.S. burger chain Wendy’s is going strictly indoors, in southern Alberta, to supply all the lettuce for its salad, burger and chicken sandwich offerings across the country. Whole Leaf, based outside Coaldale, about 20 km east of Lethbridge, was announced last week as the lettuce supplier for the chain’s 384 stores […] Read more

Crops, Fruit/Vegetables

Ontario to insure for crop loss due to lack of labour

AgriInsurance offering hailed as a first in Canada

By Dave Bedard July 10, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ontario’s federal/provincial AgriInsurance program has been temporarily expanded to include coronavirus-related labour shortages as a covered cause for crop loss. Producers already enrolled in an eligible production insurance plan and hit by crop losses due to labour disruptions during the 2020 growing season will be able to get further insurance coverage, the Ontario and federal […] Read more

Crops, Forages, Fruit/Vegetables, Weather

Ontario extends fruit, forage insurance premium deadlines

Extension offers 'flexibility,' Agricorp says

By Dave Bedard May 7, 2020

Reading Time: < 1 minute Ontario fruit and forage growers who have production insurance premiums due this month will now have until June 30 to pay, the province said Monday. The extended premium payment deadline applies only to production insurance plans for fruit, strawberries and asparagus — and to the forage rainfall insurance plan, which uses rainfall as an indicator […] Read more

“It’s all based on your contribution to the profits,” says Rod Bradshaw, here with Shelley and sons.

Fruit/Vegetables, Guide Business

Teamwork makes the dream work for this group of Alberta farmers

These five Alberta farms have built a co-op that reduces their costs, increases their efficiency, and gets them into markets they otherwise couldn’t tap. The big question is, could it work for you too?

By Trevor Bacque April 9, 2020

Reading Time: 10 minutes For these five adventurous Alberta farmers, a co-op is more than a way to structure operations. It’s more, too, than the camaraderie and the mutual support they get from working together with the same goal in mind, important though that is. For this group, it’s also about profitability, and about efficiency, and about enhancing their […] Read more

Crops, Markets, Potatoes

Plummeting french fry sales have potato growers re-evaluating

Restaurant closures slash demand, though 'chip sales have been great'

By Alexis Kienlen April 8, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes French fry sales are down across North America as tens of thousands of restaurants have closed during COVID-19, meaning the potato industry has to adapt quickly. Companies that turn potatoes into french fries, wedges and hash browns are slowing down, because there isn’t enough space to store all the frozen product. In Alberta and Manitoba, […] Read more

Crops, Fruit/Vegetables, Reuters

Canadian, U.S. farms face crop losses on foreign worker delays

By Christopher Walljasper, Rod Nickel April 6, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes Winnipeg/Chicago | Reuters — Mandatory coronavirus quarantines of seasonal foreign workers in Canada could hurt that country’s fruit and vegetable output this year, and travel problems related to the pandemic could also leave U.S. farmers with fewer workers than usual. Foreign labour is critical to farm production in both countries, where domestic workers shun the […] Read more

Grapes, Guide Business

Michele Manelli — game changer in the world of wine

Here’s what happens when a young Italian abandons a flourishing financial career to “go farming”

By Anna Hobbs April 2, 2020

Reading Time: 7 minutes I first met Michele Manelli two decades ago at Salcheto, the five-hectare vineyard he had recently bought. Nestled into a Tuscan hillside, at the end of a dirt road, it was billed as one of the finest parcels of land in the Montepulciano area, 250 kilometres northeast of Rome’s airport. The Salcheto story and his […] Read more

Doug and Elna Edgar, Keri and Randy Graham and daughters Makayla and Megan, in a field of market garden peas at their Innisfail, Alta. farm. The intergenerational farm families work together at Edgar Farms producing vegetables, grain and cattle.

Fruit/Vegetables, Guide Business

You can’t do that!

Going direct to consumer can seem oh so trendy and oh such a diversion from real farming, especially for grain and livestock farmers. Maybe we should all talk to Alberta’s Edgar family

By Trevor Bacque March 16, 2020

Reading Time: 9 minutes Admittedly, asparagus can be a love-hate thing. Many of us can’t wait for the season to start. Others, well, not so much. But maybe that’s just because those others have never had their chance to try the juicy, sweet asparagus from Edgar Farms. Okay, so it sounds like a sales pitch. But read on. This […] Read more

Crops, Fruit/Vegetables

Juice producer Lassonde to buy Sun-Rype

By GFM Staff November 14, 2019

Reading Time: 3 minutes Canada’s domestic fruit juice sector is poised for consolidation as Quebec’s Lassonde Industries mounts a friendly $80 million bid for Sun-Rype Products. Lassonde recently announced it has entered an agreement with subsidiaries of Sun-Rype’s owner, the Jim Pattison Group, to buy the Kelowna, B.C.-based fruit snack and juice maker and its two U.S. affiliates for […] Read more

Apples, Crops, Reuters

EU to ban Bayer’s Calypso insecticide

By Reuters October 22, 2019

Reading Time: < 1 minute Brussels | Reuters — European Union governments on Tuesday widened the EU ban on neonicotinoid pesticides after deciding not to renew their approval for Bayer’s thiacloprid. Farmers will not be allowed to use the neonic insecticide, sold under the brands Calypso and Biscaya, after April 30, 2020, when its current approval expires. A majority of […] Read more

U.S. grains: Soybeans fall on South American rainfall

Klassen: Feeder cattle market in price-discovery phase

Ontario backs ‘horse experience’ businesses for horse upkeep

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