Author Archives

Hog prices make surprising recovery as U.S. herd shrinks

In this bull market, the best advice is to be like Louie

Richardson’s Bison deal not seen as ag-related

Food service giant executes pandemic pivot
Sysco found itself forced to improvise last spring, such as helping convert closed restaurants into pop-up grocery stores
The pandemic tore a hole in the hull of Canada’s biggest food service supplier as thousands of restaurants and institutions closed. It also caused Sysco to sail into an iceberg of product oversupply as deliveries continued after its sales slumped. That caused a “pandemic pivot,” Kim Doherty, Sysco’s manager of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and northwestern Ontario, […] Read more
Long-time ag leader pens management book
Brian Hayward is now an author, but he is better known to farmers as CEO of United Grain Growers and Agricore United
Have you sat upon a board of directors with a terrible chairperson? Have you been the chair of a board and wondered if you were doing a terrible job? Do you even know what a chair is supposed to do and how to judge how well they’re doing it?These are questions Brian Hayward, a long-time […] Read moreHow much has Western Canadian grain transportation changed in 25 years? A lot, and not at all

Grain handling system sees major overhaul
Every element of the system has radically evolved since the mid-1990s, from trucks to elevators to trains to ports
In almost every way, the Canadian grain handling and exporting system is a quantum leap forward from where it was a quarter of a century ago. “There’s been more change in the last 25 years than, I think, the previous 50,” said Mark Hemmes, the president of the federally appointed grain handling monitor Quorum Corp. […] Read more
Farm success is biggest grain transportation challenge

Bullishness must be tempered with realism
Analysts warn producers there is no guarantee that the good times they have seen this year will continue into the future
Farmers shouldn’t indulge in sanctimonious values-signalling about their contributions to humanity when most are just trying to make a buck, says Neil Townsend of FarmLink Marketing. Growing and exporting agricultural commodities is a cutthroat business and there’s no place for lazy assumptions. Western Canadian farmers like to talk about how they feed people around the […] Read more
Railways made the most of grain opportunity
CN and CP say recent legislation allowed them to make the improvements that helped accommodate increased volumes
Nobody knew COVID-19 was coming, but Canada’s railways were primed to make the most of their sudden ability to ship grain to port. Two years of heavy investing into 2020 had set up Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway to be able to haul much more grain than before the 2018 Transportation Modernization Act […] Read more