Crop Management
HANOVER, Germany — International financial companies have made themselves comfortable in the houses of commodity trading, leaving little room for those who have to live there. The activity of big international investment firms in commodity markets has hurt the transparency of those markets, said Carl Albrecht Bartmer, head of the farm organization that organizes Agritechnica […] Read more
Crop Management
Price discovery, risk management need improvement: analysts
Pulse exporter expects resumption of demand
Improved pulse crop demand is just around the corner, says one of the world’s largest lentil processors. “An expected return to normal buying in many regional markets, which is viewed by (us) as the start of the replenishment of longstanding depleted local market stocks, is expected to materialize in 2012,” said Alliance Grain Traders Inc. […] Read more
Ending single desk won’t change realities of wheat market
The rhetoric on both sides of the Canadian Wheat Board debate has become totally overblown. Extreme pro CWB advocates say that vast swaths of farmers will go out of business and Canadian consumers won’t be able to buy food with Canadian grown wheat if the single desk goes. If the CWB was the only thing […] Read more
Bee genome may map route to disease immunity
EDMONTON — DNA investigations may crack open the secret life of bees. A federal researcher says exploring the bee genome could locate disease resistance against the varroa mite and different strains of the bacterial infections nosema apis, nosema cereanae and American foul-brood disease (AFB). “Among the honey bee diseases, (AFB) is one of the most […] Read more
Carbon credit deadline looms for zero till land
Time is running out for Alberta farmers to claim retroactive carbon credits on minimum till and zero till land. On Jan. 1, they will be able to claim carbon credits and be paid for them, only on present and future cultivation practices that can sequester carbon. Alberta implemented its Climate Change and Emissions Management Amendment […] Read more
Innovation awards presented at Agritechnica
HANOVER, Germany — A driverless tractor and a round baler that doesn’t stop won gold at Agritechnica, the world’s largest agricultural show. Agco was awarded a top prize in agricultural innovation for a tractor that follows the lead of another machine in the field. A master machine with an operator runs through the field with […] Read more
Build here, reap benefits, says Kazakhstan ag minister
HANOVER, Germany — Kazakhstan has told farm equipment manufacturers that the first companies to begin building large scale machinery in that country could receive exclusive access. The country, which is the world’s largest exporter of wheat flour, represents a significant market for farm machinery and an opportunity for agricultural investors. Asylzhan Mamytbekov, Kazakhstan’s agriculture minister, […] Read more
EU rapeseed acres could fall
PARIS, France (Reuters) -French analyst Strategie Grains says difficult rapeseed sowings in the European Union could lower the seeded oilseed area for the 2012 crop by three percent to 28.4 million acres. “This decline is essentially due to poor conditions at planting time in many countries (in particular Germany, Denmark, Romania and Bulgaria),” the analyst […] Read more
Claas sets world harvest record
HANOVER, Germany — A combine rolled into a wheat field near Swaby in Lincolnshire, England, just after dawn on the first day of September. The grain was testing 18 percent but would improve during the day. Eight hours later, 24,000 bushels of wheat, adjusted to 13.5 percent moisture, were in the bins and 172 acres […] Read more
‘Very, very big family business’ still growing
HARSEWINKEL, Germany — In the German countryside, between winter wheat and corn fields and off the autobahn, sits a town that proudly refers to itself as Combine City. Harsewinkel, population 24,000, is home to Claas. The 98-year-old, family owned farm equipment business sells more than $3.4 billion in machinery a year. It has 9,000 employees […] Read more
