Collecting data and remotely watching over field operations allow producers to adjust management systems
Farmers Edge started in 2005 as a Winnipeg-based prescription agronomy company. However, in the age of big data and big international competitors, the company needed an aggressive growth strategy to stay relevant. Trevor Sherman, who manages accounts for the company in Sask-atchewan, said it accomplished this goal by expanding services and the region in which […] Read more
Robin Booker
Stories by Robin Booker
The dilemma of moderating comments vs. free speech
A goal of the online team at The Western Producer is to increase reader engagement at producer.com and on our social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter. As a web editor, one of my tasks is to moderate the comments that are sent in, which is at times not an easy task. Some comments […] Read more
Talk of ‘old stock Canadians’ lit up Twitter as debate unfolded
Yelling at the television or radio used to be the only way viewers could interact with a broadcast. While this strategy does help vent frustrations, it also doesn’t help viewers contribute to the experience other people have of the event, aside from a handful of neighbours. Today, there are lively social media threads for almost […] Read more
Finding best time to buy fertilizer
Producers need to have good timing because seeding, spraying and harvesting must be completed within small windows of time. However, timing is also important when they buy crop inputs and sell their products, according to Gord Nystuen from Input Capital Corp. Nystuen presented historical data at a farm show near Saskatoon that suggests fertilizer prices […] Read more
Don’t set it and forget it
It can be an onerous task to stop the combine and check for grain losses every time conditions change, but that’s exactly what operators should do, says Derek Rude of the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute. Rude, who looks closely at the fine line between increasing a combine’s productivity and maintaining acceptable losses, said operators should […] Read more
Social media critics take aim at controversial photo
Last week, social media was saturated with stories and pictures of three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s tiny body washed ashore on a Turkish beach after he and his family’s attempt to sail from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos. News agencies that chose to run the photo of the child lying face down in the surf […] Read more
A tractor and disk artist gets political
A farmer from east of Brantford, Ont., has found a way to raise the profile of agriculture in the federal election. “The rye was off and I had worked up the field on the east side and thought, ‘let’s have some fun with this,’ ” John Langs said. Langs, who farms approximately 350 acres, used […] Read more
Getting the agriculture and agri-food vote
Agriculture gets little attention in federal elections which is not surprising as less than two percent of Canadians are directly involved with farming. That’s it, a couple of points. In the federal election the economy is being hailed as the important issue. Statistics Canada defines the first six months of 2015 as an official recession […] Read more
Tweets offer chance to debate merits and drawbacks of supply management
Recently, a Reuters wire service story became available to The Western Producer on how European dairy operators are struggling to remain profitable in a global market decline, just as the 30-year-old quota system that limited their output was dismantled, which is contributing to a global dairy oversupply. Since the Canadian supply management system is under […] Read more
Vote bobble head?
When the federal election began political commentators said the electorate wouldn’t pay attention in the early weeks. They would be sedated by long summer days at the beach house and with thoughts of, well, anything other than politics while flip-flops were still in fashion. It’s generally not in an incumbent party’s interest to have an […] Read more
