Reading Time: 3 minutes Chicago | Reuters –– A legal protest by Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) over a meeting among big U.S. railroads about mergers in their industry has highlighted manoeuvring in the sector to cope with a rapid downturn and possible consolidation. Calgary-based CP on Tuesday asked the U.S. Justice Department to look into statements by U.S. railroads, […] Read more
CP’s Norfolk bid riles U.S. railroads
CP books more Prairie grain revenue at year-end
Reading Time: 2 minutes Higher grain revenue on Canada’s Prairies helped lead to record full-year revenues and offset a lower fourth-quarter gross for Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), as the company warned of substantial job cuts ahead. The railway on Thursday reported overall net income of $1.352 billion on record revenue of $6.712 billion for 2015, down from $1.476 billion […] Read more
So you’ve got a drone — now what?
Until drone technology gets a lot more user friendly, farmers may want to leave it in the hands of agronomists
Reading Time: 5 minutes Chances are, you’ve got a drone — maybe it’s a Parrot AR you picked up for $100 at Walmart. Possibly it’s a $1,500 DJI Phantom 3 that takes great aerial photos. Or maybe you’re one of the few western Canadian producers who’s purchased an NDVI-capable drone that takes orthomosaic images that can be layered in […] Read more
Supreme Court tosses CP challenge on interswitching
Reading Time: 2 minutes Canadian Pacific Railway’s (CP) bid to halt new federal rules which allow more Prairie elevators to move loaded grain cars on more than one railway has stopped at Canada’s highest court. The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday dismissed CP’s appeal of an October ruling at the Federal Court of Appeal — a ruling which […] Read more
How “free” is the free trade in agricultural equipment?
Canadian farm equipment manufacturing got a boost from free trade in 1944. What can we expect from today’s trade agreements?
Reading Time: 6 minutes In the last few years, we’ve heard a lot of passionate political speeches about so-called free trade agreements. It’s a topic that is really more than a century old in this country, going back as far as 1911 when the failed push for “Reciprocity” between Canada and the U.S. made headlines as a hot-button issue. […] Read more
Study finds Canadian beef’s GHG footprint shrunk over 30 years
Reading Time: 3 minutes Efficiencies in cattle production and feeding have allowed Canada’s beef industry to produce the same weight in beef as 30 years ago with smaller breeding herds, less land — and smaller greenhouse gas (GHG) output, a new study finds. The study, led by research scientist Tim McAllister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge, with […] Read more
Salford buys tillage equipment maker AerWay
Reading Time: 2 minutes Southwestern Ontario vertical tillage and pasture equipment maker AerWay has become part of another well-known Ontario ag equipment manufacturer. Salford Group announced in December it has bought the AerWay advanced aeration products line from the Canadian trailer systems arm of German truck, bus and trailer axle and suspension manufacturer SAF-Holland. AerWay, which operates a manufacturing […] Read more
Puree processor gets GF2 funds for expansion
Reading Time: 2 minutes A Portage la Prairie food processor that converts culled vegetables into nutritional purees has received $582,000 from the federal-provincial Growing Value program to increase its capacity. Canadian Prairie Garden Puree Products has acquired new equipment and modified its existing operation in order to cook more types of fruits, vegetables and pulse crops like chickpeas, navy […] Read more
Baltic Dry Index continues downward slide
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — A downtrend in ocean freight rates shows no sign of letting up, as the Baltic Dry Index again hit fresh historic lows. The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) was quoted at 445 points on Thursday, marking a new low since records began in 1985. The index was trading above 1,200 as recently as […] Read more
The quality revolution in agricultural machinery
Business has changed. You can’t build a tractor the way they used to. Farmers won’t let you
Reading Time: 6 minutes At first, we all thought he must have been exaggerating. It was 2013 and we were at the Hesston, Kansas combine assembly plant where Hans-Bernd Veltmaat, AGCO’s senior vice-president was discussing the plant’s US$40-million expansion, which included a new state-of-the-art paint system. “This paint centre is a major building block for AGCO,” Veltmaat said. “With […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
