Mary MacArthur

One of Canada’s largest cattle slaughter companies, XL Foods, has a bid in to buy a mothballed Alberta pork plant. Lee Nilsson, one of the chief executive officers of Nilsson Brothers, which owns XL Foods, confirmed the company bid $3.3 million for the JTB Canadian Pork plant at Barrhead, Alta., with a $500,000 deposit. XL […] Read more

EDMONTON – With a little luck and a few more donations for freight, people in Ukraine will be eating the same kinds of Nantes carrots and Homesteader peas that Canadians reap from their gardens every year. Tony Stoeckl, a grain farmer from Baldonnel, B.C., has arranged to ship 155,000 packages of Canadian garden seed worth […] Read more

It will be at least three months before prairie farmers know if they’ll receive all their money from a failed Alberta oats company. A Canadian Grain Commission auditor visited the Alberta Oats facility north of Edmonton last week. It is in receivership and the auditor was to verify the amount of money owed to grain […] Read more

ATHABASCA, Alta. – In the midst of dropping cattle prices and a steady supply of dreary agriculture news, Kelly Olson is still optimistic about agriculture and the beef industry. The key to his optimism is having a varied farming business and knowing exactly what each of his diversified operations costs, said the northern Alberta farmer. […] Read more

As a group, feedlot owners were the main beneficiaries of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy recovery program. Yet many of them also expressed dissatisfaction with program’s design. Jeff Ball operates Ballco Feeders, a 13,000-head feedlot outside High River, Alta., and is the vice-president of the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association. He said what started as an industry-designed […] Read more

A group of farmers has filed a statement of claim in Alberta provincial court against the Canadian Grain Commission, alleging it allowed a grain dealer to operate an elevator without a licence despite knowing it was in financial difficulty. About 40 farmers and truckers lost $358,000 when All Grain Alberta Ltd. went into receivership in […] Read more

A $460 million support program designed to help cattle feeders affected by the U.S. border closure has funneled money into the hands of only a few cattle feeders, mostly in Alberta, the Western Producer has learned through an Access to Information request. In the first series of payouts in Alberta, 123 feedlot owners received the […] Read more

The Alberta government has announced its third financial aid pro- gram aimed at helping beleaguered feedlot owners boost cattle prices to a more normal level. Unlike previous aid programs for those affected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the Alberta Fed Cattle Competitive Market Adjustment Program has no end date and no financial cap to stop panic […] Read more

More than 200,000 acres of crop have been damaged after two storms skipped across Alberta, wiping out the hopes of many farmers for a good crop, said the head of the province’s crop insurance program. “It was very severe damage,” said Merle Jacobson with AFSC, formerly the Agriculture Financial Services Corp. The first storm, on […] Read more

An interest-free cash advance from the federal and provincial governments is needed if rural communities and their local governments are to remain viable, say the heads of prairie municipalities. Without an injection of cash to help offset the hurt in rural communities caused by the closing of the border after bovine spongiform encephalopathy was discovered […] Read more