Roberta Rampton

WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg Commodity Exchange is looking forward to more business if the government accepts recommendations to remove feed barley from the Canadian Wheat Board sales monopoly. The exchange’s board of governors met July 10 to talk about the report of the Western Grain Marketing Panel, which proposed releasing feed barley to the fortunes […] Read more

WINNIPEG – The Canadian Seed Institute is looking for guinea pigs. The new trade organization will be taking over some quality assurance programs traditionally run by Agriculture Canada over the next few years. So Jim McCullagh, interim manager, said the institute wants to make sure its training and procedures work for small and large seed […] Read more

PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. – Dennis McIntosh is a flax grower on a mission. Last week, he drove his Harley Davidson motorcycle from his farm in Melfort, Sask. to Portage la Prairie, Man. in hopes of meeting some scientists working in the field of nutraceuticals. For a decade, McIntosh has been working with University of […] Read more

SASKATOON – Ken DeMong says he didn’t waste time putting recent Canadian Wheat Board adjustment cheques for barley in the bank. “I’m not a large farmer and those kinds of payments really help out,” the Cudworth, Sask. farmer said, describing his two recent cheques, both over $2,000. “I keep getting these payments in the mail […] Read more

WINNIPEG – Cereal rust scientist Don Harder didn’t want to see his trusty workhorse put out to pasture. So he found it a good home. Harder’s horse? An 11-year-old electron microscope, standing about two metres high and weighing in around a tonne, that was taking up a lab at the Winnipeg Research Centre. Harder and […] Read more

WINNIPEG – Despite the cold, wet weather that clung to most of the Prairies this spring, the Canadian Wheat Board estimates farmers have seeded about the same area and will produce five percent more grain than they did last year. Analysts from the board’s weather and crop surveillance department presented their estimates to officials from […] Read more

WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg Commodity Exchange is taking a long hedge in the debate over wheat and barley marketing. The board of governors decided last week it will develop international futures and options contracts for wheat and barley in case the Canadian Wheat Board loses its monopoly on the grains. Spokesperson Larry Weber said the […] Read more

WINNIPEG – As some farmers raced to get crops in the ground last week before crop insurance seeding deadlines, Manitoba’s farm lobby group was asking for a deadline extension. “I don’t think they need a lot of days,” said Don Dewar, a vice-president of Keystone Agricultural Producers. “Probably to the end of this week would […] Read more

WINNIPEG – The Manitoba Court of Queen’s bench dismissed a class action lawsuit against the Canadian Wheat Board on May 24 over the way it handled the 1993-94 feed wheat pool. The suit was launched in December 1995 by M-Jay Farm Enterprises Ltd., owned by Fran and Jake Hoeppner of Snowflake, Man. Jake Hoeppner is […] Read more

WINNIPEG – The romance of railways often sucks the unprepared into buying a short-line railroad, says an American expert on the subject. But, he adds, the economics of owning a short line can then chew the misguided up and spit them out. Andrew Jennings, who has worked with short lines since the 1960s and has […] Read more