Photo: File

Court remedy sought for unfulfilled contracts

Sask. company claims equipment breakdown at a third-party mill caused it to declare force majeure on contracted oats

Reading Time: 2 minutes More than two dozen farmers are moving ahead with legal action against Purely Canada Foods after it failed to honour contracts for gluten-free oats. The dispute centres on 2022 gluten-free oat contracts. On March 1, 2023, the company sent a letter to the farmers saying it was voiding the contracts because oat processing machinery had failed the previous fall and it couldn’t accept the crop.




(Keeperofthezoo/iStock/Getty Images)

Prairie forecast: Winter temperatures moving in

Issued Jan. 03, covering: Jan. 3 – 10

Reading Time: 3 minutes Looking at this forecast period, the best way I can describe it is that we will be seeing a slow slide into more seasonal temperatures. The persistent upper-level ridging that brought warm--and record warm temperatures--to much of the prairies in December has broken down. The weather models are showing a trough of low pressure developing over the west coast over the next seven days.


Signage on Viterra’s office building in Regina. (Dave Bedard photo)

Sask. union serves Viterra strike notice

Grain handling giant says its committed to negotiation, but has contingency plans in place

Reading Time: < 1 minute Yesterday, the union issued Viterra a 72-hour notice that they intend to strike as early as 2:00 pm on Jan. 5. GSU members from Viterra Country Operations and Maintenance and Viterra's Regina head office have been negotiating for "fair wages, improved work-life balance, and workplace respect," for more than a year, the union said.

Lorne Hepworth (right), pictured here in 2021 accepting the Saskatchewan Order of Merit from Sask. Lieutenant Governor Russ Mirasty. Photo: Brighten Creative Group

Hepworth honoured for agricultural achievements

The London, Ont. resident started as a Sask. farmer and vet before moving to politics, then research

Reading Time: < 1 minute Lorne Hepworth, former Saskatchewan agriculture minister and current chair of the Agriculture Research Institute of Ontario, has been named a member of the Order of Canada.


Winter is a good time to review farm transition plans.


Prairie forecast: One more week of above average temperatures

Issued Dec. 27, covering Dec. 27 to Jan. 3

Reading Time: 3 minutes As we head into a new year, it's looking like this could be the last mild forecast period before a switch to a more typical winter weather pattern. As usual, there is always a fair bit of uncertainty in forecasts beyond seven or so days, but we all knew that at some point we'd see some cold wintery weather move in.




Prairie forecast: Mild and dry weather right up to the holidays

Prairie forecast: Mild and dry weather right up to the holidays

Issued Dec. 13, covering Dec. 13 to Dec. 25

Reading Time: 3 minutes Here is the big picture: there are two current storm tracks across North America. The first, which is well to our north, is the storm track that would normally be across our region. So far this winter, it has been displaced to our north – one of the reasons we have been dry. The second storm track is well to the south across the southern U.S. This places us under a rather slack flow as we oscillate between pushes of warm and cool air with each passage of low-pressure to our north.