Michael Raine

Packers say the prices they pay for cattle have dropped as a result of the rising Canadian dollar, lost premium markets for offal and new costs for waste disposal and slaughter regulations. They affirmed this at federal agriculture committee hearings in Ottawa last week. Loss of markets for offal, hide, waste and other non-primal meat […] Read more

NEILBURG, Sask. – The BSE crisis has sparked plans for at least 10 cattle producer-owned, meat packing plants in Saskatchewan. All have hopes of opening in the next 24 months. Cattle industry experts say not all the plants will make it, but the crisis has spurred producers into riding up the value chain to protect […] Read more

Alberta Treasury Branch, Alberta’s largest farm lender, expects to see more than $30 million in agricultural loan losses due to BSE this year, but despite this it increased farm lending 13.9 percent. Bob Normand, president of ATB Financial, said Feb. 18 that his company made a $29.4 million loss provision for bovine spongiform encephalopathy problems […] Read more

Cattle producers are pressing auction markets and packers to charge less in assembly fees and commissions to help producers during times of depressed cattle prices. “It just seems that if our price has been cut in half, then the auctioneer should do likewise. Why should I have to take the whole hit?” said Greg Hemming, […] Read more

From beer drinker to barley grower, traceability for malt barley has arrived in Canada. For several years farmers have heard about the coming trend of traceability and how their customers will eventually require them to provide details about the way their products are grown and handled. Japanese beer brewing giant Sapporo began obtaining production records […] Read more

The grading of malt barley is not as mysterious as it once appeared, says a veteran malt buyer. For decades, farmers have complained that grading barley as malt was as predictable as the weather. Jack Foster of Prairie Malt says malting companies have refined their practices to meet the more stringent needs of brewers and […] Read more

It’s a discrepancy that must scream out at cattle producers every time they walk past their grocery store’s meat counter. The prices they receive for their feeder calves are half what they were before BSE was discovered in North America, yet the retail price for beef has dropped only slightly. Where did the money go? […] Read more

Avian flu appeared in British Columbia chickens last week, but in a less dangerous form than was found in Asia earlier this month. The H7N virus found in a Masqui, B.C., broiler breeder chicken flock last week on Loewen Acres Farm is a mild version of the one that recently killed 22 people as well […] Read more

Jim Halford and Pat Beaujot have much in common. They both farm and live in small town Saskatchewan, almost close enough to be neighbours. They both believe in keeping tillage to a minimum. They both design and build some of the most accurate small-grain seeding equipment in the world. If not friends, they could have […] Read more

MINTON, Sask. – Lee Nilsson made a difficult trip into cattle country that, as he put it, “could have ended badly if there were a rope, a rafter and three- legged stool handy.” Nilsson and his family own and operate XL Foods of Calgary and Moose Jaw, one of Western Canada’s largest, and for much […] Read more