Reading Time: 6 minutes Ask any western grain farmer what is significant about August 1, 2012, and most will tell you it was the day the federal government eliminated the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly on the sale and export of wheat and barley from Western Canada. Some farmers will refer to it as the “grain marketing freedom day.” Others […] Read more
Why don’t we know?
Whether you were in favour of changing the CWB or against it, isn’t it time we get clear, unbiased answers about what the impact has been?
Farm in South Africa?
The land is there, and so is the climate. But this may not be the land of milk and honey for you
Reading Time: 5 minutes In many ways, South Africa is an agricultural success story. Its produce and its wines are enjoyed in many countries around the world, and the country isn’t plagued by famines or food shortages like others on the African continent. And yet beneath the apparent prosperity and stability, risks await farmers in a country still struggling […] Read more
Ontario proposal aims to double ethanol blend in fuel
Government move would boost corn market in the province
Reading Time: 3 minutes An Ontario government proposal could dramatically increase the amount of Ontario corn going into ethanol production and help bring consistency to the basis price for corn in the province. The government has posted its proposal to increase ethanol content in the province’s gasoline from five to 10 per cent to the Environmental Bill of Rights […] Read more
A different school
For Vance Lester and Sue Echlin, getting a non-agricultural education proved a big help when they returned to the farm
Reading Time: 6 minutes Graduate degrees in ecology and international relations don’t seem the kind of education that would be likely to help on a Canadian farm. But that’s where we might be wrong. For Sue Echlin and Vance Lester, that kind of schooling has been instrumental in their launching a fruit-growing and winery business, and in keeping it […] Read more
Editor’s Note: They’re wrong about our farmers
Today’s agriculture is proof that farmers are a resource you can grow a country on. So why would you want to stymie them?
Reading Time: 2 minutes I rarely talk politics in this space, and I like it that way. But as we put this issue together, I find I’m trying read the facial gestures of federal cabinet ministers, I’m scrutinizing their word choices, and I’m asking everyone I know what they’re hearing in the back corridors. It isn’t exactly how you’d […] Read more
Editor’s Note: Even in the East, it’s good the West won
Five years after Ottawa put the last spike in the Canadian Wheat Board, farmers are showing they’re more than sharp enough to do their own marketing
Reading Time: 2 minutes Of course the optics might have been much different. If commodity prices had sunk far below the average cost of production, the West’s cartoonists would have had a field day calling for Ottawa to throw a life ring to farmers who had lost their pool. Even so, as Country Guide field editor Lisa Guenther reports […] Read more
After the CWB
Whether you farm in the West or East, looking at how Prairie farmers are managing their sales after five years on their own will make you a better marketer
Reading Time: 9 minutes Maybe you mourned its demise, or maybe you danced on its grave. Either way, five years after the federal government put the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk six feet under, it’s clear there will be no resurrection. How have farmers adapted to marketing wheat without the single desk? Where are they excelling, and where not? […] Read more
U.S. senators seek ban on pesticide chlorpyrifos
Reading Time: 2 minutes New York / Reuters – A group of Democratic senators hopes to ban a pesticide the U.S. government has greenlighted for use, according to a bill unveiled on Tuesday in a challenge to Republican President Donald Trump’s push to loosen environmental regulations. The bill, introduced by Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, would outlaw chlorpyrifos, […] Read more
Farmers who made our country
As sesquicentennial celebrations get underway, here are three farmers you may not have heard of, but will want to remember
Reading Time: 7 minutes As Canada celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2017, we’ll hear a lot about how the fisheries of the Grand Banks and the forests and the lucrative fur trade of the interior helped build our nation. We’ll hear less about the unique contribution farming has made to this country, but farmers have played an oversized role […] Read more
Bad news for ag’s Big 3 farm equipment manufacturers
With three-quarters of machinery makers already planning lay-offs, Brexit’s damage to the EU is creating more worry
Reading Time: 4 minutes On the eve of Britain’s June 23 vote, I was in Hungary eating supper with a group of journalists including a freelancer who is also part of a family farm operation in England. She was the one to correctly predict the “leave” victory. That farmers would vote to leave the EU was astonishing to me. […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
