Reading Time: 2 minutes Sydney | Reuters –– Australia on Thursday blocked the sale of the country’s largest landowner, private farming group S. Kidman and Co., to foreign investors, saying an agricultural area the size of South Korea should remain in Australian hands. Ownership of farmland is a sensitive political issue in Australia amid concerns that foreign buyers are […] Read more
Australia blocks foreign firm’s deal for largest farm owner
Watching for rain in Australia
Warren Hobson’s reservoir is built to hold 18 feet of water. There’s one foot left
Reading Time: 5 minutes The farmers were smiling. They were attending one of this country’s premier machinery expos in Gunnedah, New South Wales, and the weather forecast was calling for widespread rains across the region. In Australia, that is a reason enough to smile. Rain in this country is a precious and sometimes scarce commodity. Even a few millimetres […] Read more
University sets its sights on fusarium
This major U of M lab program hopes to stop fusarium before it starts
Reading Time: 4 minutes Protecting crops from the ravages of fusarium is a never-ending job for investigators like Dr. Dilantha Fernando and his staff at the University of Manitoba. The most common species of the pathogen is fusarium graminearum, commonly known as fusarium head blight (FHB) or fusarium scab. It’s a cereal crop pathogen that has become the most […] Read more
Drought exposes cracks in Australia’s acclaimed water market
Reading Time: 3 minutes Sydney | Reuters — A pioneering Australian scheme to improve the management of water in the world’s driest inhabited continent is facing its first real test as an intensifying El Nino threatens crops and builds tensions between farmers and environmentalists. The three-year old management plan for the Murray-Darling basin, an area twice the size of […] Read more
Australia lifts beef export forecast as El Nino bites
Reading Time: 2 minutes Sydney | Reuters — Australia raised its forecast for beef exports by 20 per cent on Tuesday as drought conditions worsened by an El Nino weather pattern force farmers in the world’s third-largest exporter to maintain near-record slaughter rates. Beef exports are expected to total 1.225 million tonnes in the crop year to July 1, […] Read more
PHOTOS: Youth Ag-Summit: A role for research
Reading Time: < 1 minute Feeding the nine billion-plus people expected to be living on our planet by 2050, from a land base that’s not expected to get any bigger, is the question posed to young “thought leaders” at this year’s Youth Ag-Summit. Grainews and Country Guide field editor Lisa Guenther is in Canberra this week for the event, hosted […] Read more
‘Megatrends’ expected to move ag sector in future
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — Health-conscious customers with money to spend will be looking to purchase more food over the next 20 years, while changing technologies and global economic uncertainty will bring their own challenges. That’s the outlook in a recent report out of Australia, highlighting five megatrends expected to impact the agricultural sector in the coming […] Read more
U.S. grains: Soybeans climb as China fears wane
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters –– Benchmark U.S. soybean futures rose 1.5 per cent on Thursday as equity markets stabilized in China, the world’s top soy buyer, and on outlooks for dry weather as the U.S. Midwest growing season winds down, traders said. Corn clung to modest gains on better-than-expected weekly U.S. export sales and spillover strength […] Read more
How Australia plans to beat Canadian farmers
A must read from Down Under for coming out on top
Reading Time: 6 minutes You have to admit that for an economic study, this one has a great title: “The Puck Stops Here!: Canada challenges Australia’s grain supply chains.” The new study is by the Australian Export Grains Innovation Center (AEGIC), and it looks into Western Canada’s export grain supply chain. In fact, it looks at our grain system […] Read more
Chinese billionaire buys Australian cattle stations
Reading Time: 2 minutes Sydney | Reuters –– A Chinese billionaire has bought two large Australian cattle stations for A$47 million (C$44.8 million), in at least the third deal this year involving a Chinese investor buying into the country’s farmlands. Xingfa Ma, who owns the Tianma Bearing Group Co., snapped up 40,000 head of cattle along with the 705,700-hectare […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
