Reading Time: 4 minutes Chicago/Washington | Reuters — Smithfield Foods is missing about a third of its employees at a South Dakota pork plant because they are quarantined or afraid to return to work after a severe coronavirus outbreak, according to the workers’ union. Tyson Foods was forced to briefly close its Storm Lake, Iowa plant — a month […] Read more
U.S. meatpacking workers often absent after plants ordered to reopen
"There's still so many risks"
U.S. livestock: Futures up as meat production grows
Live cattle up off last week's lows
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. live cattle futures rose on Monday, after plunging to their lowest price in more than a month last week, amid signs of meat production increasing — even as cash market prices continue to strain livestock producers’ profits. Chicago Mercantile Exchange August live cattle rose 0.675 cents, to 96 cents (all […] Read more
India’s levy cut on lentils part of balancing act
Global markets had zero or little forewarning of decision
Reading Time: 2 minutes MarketsFarm — To Pulse Canada, the recent move by the Indian government to temporarily reduce the import levy on lentils from 30 to 10 per cent is part of a balancing act between competing interests. Greg Cherewyk, president of Pulse Canada, explained that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “looking after the needs of a politically […] Read more
U.S. livestock: Live cattle futures touch one-month low
Improving production pressures hog futures
Reading Time: < 1 minute Chicago | Reuters — U.S. live cattle futures dropped to their lowest price in more than a month on Friday, weighed down by expectations for increasing meat production. Beef output has improved as slaughterhouses have resumed operations after closing temporarily in April and May due to outbreaks of the new coronavirus among plant workers. The […] Read more
Coronavirus threatens Chicago’s last remaining trading pits
Grain options pits remain closed, for now
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — Chicago brokers and traders worry COVID-19 will kill more of the city’s once famous shout-and-gesture trading pits. CME Group, which owns the Chicago Board of Trade, said this week that most of the pits it closed in March because of the pandemic will remain shuttered indefinitely. The news disappointed some brokers […] Read more
U.S. livestock: Hogs weaken on expectations for abundant supplies
Cattle futures seen as rangebound
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. lean hog futures fell on Wednesday on expectations for abundant pork supplies as meat processors work their way through pigs that backed up on farms when slaughterhouses shut due to the coronavirus pandemic. Traders expect meat packers to start eating into the backlog of hogs within the next two weeks […] Read more
U.N. expert says ‘some are starving’ in North Korea
Estimated 40 per cent of North Koreans need humanitarian aid, WFP says
Reading Time: 2 minutes Geneva | Reuters — A United Nations human rights expert voiced alarm on Tuesday at “widespread food shortages and malnutrition” in North Korea, made worse by a nearly five-month border closure with China and strict quarantine measures against COVID-19. Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, […] Read more
COVID-19 cases, deaths lead Ontario to test migrant farm workers
Reading Time: 2 minutes Toronto/Ottawa | Reuters — Ontario has started testing about 8,000 migrant farm workers for COVID-19 in a hard-hit rural region of the province after two young workers died and the coronavirus was found on at least 17 farms, according to the local public health authority. The Ontario outbreak has centred on farms in the Windsor-Essex […] Read more
U.S. livestock: Live cattle set one-week highs in rebound
Chicago lean hogs close lower
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. live cattle futures rose on Tuesday, reaching one-week highs in a rebound from losses last week, as traders noted that meat companies have been slaughtering more livestock. The number of livestock being killed each day has recovered from April and May, when processors temporarily shut slaughterhouses due to massive outbreaks […] Read more
Farm hobby
Non-farmers earn smiles and sometimes smirks when they move to the country to hobby farm, but their basic idea is sound. A hobby is great for all of us, especially as we age
Reading Time: 8 minutes It’s no surprise that active farmers say they don’t have time for hobbies or outside interests, especially if they’ve also got young families. But as the years go by, the price begins to show, both in quality of life and also — as more and more research shows — in the quality of your decision-making […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
