If you’ve taken to market watching in lieu of seeding, there can’t be much comfort in canola prices. Even though farmgate prices have fallen about $100 per tonne since early spring, June futures prices at the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange fell below $400 per tonne last week. That’s a marked contrast to market behavior in the […] Read more
Stories by Colleen Munro
Is there a future in growing rye?
Losing the rye futures contract in Winnipeg isn’t a fatal blow to this standby crop, but it does need a champion in order to thrive, says University of Saskatchewan agriculture economist Gary Storey. Storey and colleague Tom Allen completed a study on the crop for the policy branch of Agriculture Canada this spring. He said […] Read more
More flax, pea planting: StatsCan
SASKATOON – Prices have had the first say in the crops western Canadian farmers intend to seed this year, but weather may have the last. Statistics Canada’s yearly planting intentions report released last week showed a dramatic increase in flax and pea acreage and only a modest decrease in 1994’s record canola acreage. Barley is […] Read more
WCE considers pea contract
In the past 10 years, field peas have become an increasingly more important crop for western Canadian farmers. In 1994, farmers across the Prairies seeded 1.76 million acres of both food and feed peas; the record acreage yielded record production of 1.44 million tonnes. Sask-atchewan accounted for 1.11 million of those acres alone. Estimates released […] Read more
Herbicide-resistant canola approved by Ag Canada
SASKATOON – A maximum of 500 farmers will have a chance to grow AgrEvo’s herbicide-resistant canola this year. Steve Meister, spokesperson for the company in Regina, said Innovator canola, which is resistant to glufosinaten ammonium, cleared the final regulatory hurdles last week, enabling its registration. Agriculture Canada granted re-registration of the broad spectrum herbicide, now […] Read more
Who’s planting what, where?
At this time of year, everyone – from analysts to grain company executives to Statistics Canada – wants to get inside farmers’ heads. The goal? To find out how many acres of each crop they and their neighbors are going to plant, and from there, extrapolate the size of each Canadian crop. Statistics Canada releases […] Read more
Chemical storage rules mean fewer sites remain open
SASKATOON – Places where farmers can buy agricultural chemicals will dwindle this year, as sellers comply with the last phase of new storage rules. Wendy Rose, spokesperson for the Crop Protection Institute of Canada, in Etobicoke, Ont., said as of March 23, 679 warehouses across Canada had submitted final audits, showing they had complied with […] Read more
Durum prices plummeting
Two dollars a bushel. That’s how much the Canadian Wheat Board is predicting durum prices will fall in the 1995-96 crop year. (Not including freight, of course.) Actual returns in 1993-94 for No. 1 CWAD were $235.36 per tonne or $6.40 per bushel. Forecasted returns for the 1994-95 durum pool are currently at about that […] Read more
Canadian beef sales to Asian markets increase 60 percent
SASKATOON – Canada’s share of the Asian beef market grew substantially in 1994, according to statistics released by the Canadian Beef Export Federation. Canada sold nearly 12,000 tonnes of beef and veal to Asia; two-thirds of that amount went to Japan. Overall, Canadian beef exports to the region grew by nearly 60 percent in 1994 […] Read more
Impressive debut for solin
While it hasn’t quite established itself as an alternative crop, in its first year of commercial production, solin has established itself as an alternative. Solin is the recently approved generic name for low linolenic acid flax. The major solin variety, so far, on the Prairies is sold by the trade name Linola and contracted through […] Read more
