Michael Raine

VANCOUVER – Grain rail car unloads at the port of Vancouver have surged to record levels since the end of a strike by federal weighers last month. Where cold steel rail meets Pacific Ocean, CN Rail set a new record for unloads, exceeding projections by 25 percent in week 36 of the shipping season. But […] Read more

Some American farmers have cried foul as they look north to Canada, the land of low-valued dollars and even lower farm chemical prices. Jerome Anderson, a farmer from Ross, North Dakota, and some of his neighbors look at the prices advertised for pesticides and feel they are at a disadvantage in the marketplace as they […] Read more

The Statistics Canada consumer price index recently showed nationally averaged prices at the pump for gasoline rose by 3.5 per cent between February and March. That’s the largest monthly increase in gasoline prices since August 1997, when prices rose 4.7 per cent. Gasoline and diesel prices are tied to crude oil market fluctuations and crude […] Read more

ELSTOW, Sask. – A hog barn debate that has caused small divisions in this central Saskatchewan community is not based mainly on the usual complaints of bad smells, water quality fears or neighbor’s falling property values. The argument here focuses on, for the most part, the politics of large scale, commercial agriculture versus traditional family […] Read more

GLEN VALLEY, B.C. – As Chris Ormel prepares another udder for milking, his thoughts travel across the road to the Fraser River and he talks of two other big flood years in the Glen Valley, 1997 and 1948. Ormel’s 80-head dairy farm lies on a gentle bend in the Fraser River valley, between the river […] Read more

OSLO, Minnesota – Heavy rain and snowfalls in the American Red River Valley and southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan last weekend are causing revisions to previous flood predictions. “It isn’t that the levels are setting any records in southern Saskatchewan, but people get used to lower levels and they build or farm in areas that are […] Read more

BISMARCK, North Dakota – Two North Dakota state bills involving Canadian agricultural products have been watered down, according to farmers pushing for the legislation. “Much of the meat of these two bills has been removed through amendments,” said Jerome Anderson, a farmer from Ross, N.D. Members of two farm groups, Those Guys and McKenzie County […] Read more

A fermentation pilot plant in Saskatoon will give small research companies a chance to do research they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford, say industry officials. “This gives private industry the chance to move products from a 100-millilitre beaker on a lab bench to near production scale facility trials without making a huge investment in […] Read more

Durum needs sulfur. In a crop where nitrogen is critical, a lack of sulfur can court a cropping disaster. “Sulfur may be one of the reasons that farmers are getting disappointing results,” said John Harapiak, of Westco Fertilizer. Other researchers concur. “Nitrogen may be present in adequate amounts, but without sulfur in the right ratio […] Read more

Some Prairie farmers say they want provincial governments to ensure there is accurate price reporting in the pork industry. In all three provinces the daily prices packers pay are not available to growers. And it is not just a prairie problem. Earlier this year Donna Reifschneider, president of the National Pork Producers Council, called on […] Read more