Newly expanded french fry plants in Alberta and Manitoba may not be able to run at full capacity because there is little excess potato supply in other parts of North America.  |  File photo

Potato shortage looms on Prairies

Recent snowstorms and freezing temperatures have thrown a wrench into harvest plans in Manitoba and Alberta

Potato processing plants in Manitoba and Alberta may not run at full capacity this winter. About 20,000 acres of potatoes were in the ground in Manitoba as of the middle of October, and growers needed two weeks of favourable weather to harvest the crop. In Alberta, temperatures dropped to -7 to -14 C for several […] Read more

Farmers in Manitoba and North Dakota are struggling to get onto their fields to harvest soybeans, or any crop right now, thanks to record rain in September and a massive snowstorm before Thanksgiving. | Twitter/@kmsatrom photo

Weather turns against Manitoba, N. Dakota soybean crops

In the third week of October, about a million acres of soybeans were not harvested in Manitoba. The situation was much worse in North Dakota, where 4.5 to five million acres were still in the field. If the weather is favourable and there’s a best-case scenario over the next few weeks, growers should be able […] Read more

Bad harvest weather is limiting the amount of top quality spring wheat grown in Canada and the United States this year.  |  REUTERS/Dan Koeck photo

Markets ponder China-U.S. trade deal, wheat problems

The energy in the agricultural futures markets last week was in wheat and hogs. Volatility was the name of the game in the Chicago hog market. It opened the week’s trade with a limit up move of three cents per pound, reacting optimistically to news on Oct. 11 that the United States and China had […] Read more


Canadian exporters must move fast if they are to protect sales to Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership signatories, such as Japan, because the United States is moving to sign bilateral deals with those countries.  |  REUTERS/Yuya Shino photo

Canada must get serious about increasing trade with Asia

Whoever won the federal election (I’m writing this before the results are in), there will be no time for a victory lap or a long, defeated sobbing episode, at least for the International trade and foreign affairs ministers, old and maybe new. Canada has a tiny window of opportunity to try to defend some new […] Read more

Italy’s return to the Canadian durum market isn’t expected to last.  |  File photo

Italy’s return to market pushes durum exports

Shipments to all customers increased 57 percent over last year, despite a 13 percent drop in production

Canadian durum exports are way up through the first 10 weeks of the 2019-20 campaign due to unexpectedly strong interest from an old friend. Grain companies shipped out 920,700 tonnes of the crop, a 57 percent increase over the same 10-week period last year and 41 percent above the five-year average, according to Canadian Grain […] Read more


O & T Farms is the 33rd company inducted into the Saskatchewan Business Hall of Fame. It took place at the recent 2019 ABEX Awards in Saskatoon. | Twitter/@ABEXAwards photo

O & T Farms honoured at sask. awards show

O & T Farms is the 33rd company inducted into the Saskatchewan Business Hall of Fame. It took place at the recent 2019 ABEX Awards in Saskatoon. A leader in innovation for 25 years, O & T has shifted away from poultry production to specialty feed ingredient production. The company has the capacity to annually […] Read more

South American dryness could prompt soy rally

A short crop in the U.S. in 2011 followed by poor harvests in Brazil and Argentina eventually led to US$17 per bu. prices

It hasn’t been a market mover yet but the poor start to South America’s 2019-20 soybean crop is raising some eyebrows. The accumulated 60-day precipitation level for the key soybean-growing areas of Brazil was 66 millimetres as of Oct. 18, which was 52 percent below normal. The same goes for Argentina, where it was 35 […] Read more

Canfax report

This cattle market information is selected from the weekly report from Canfax, a division of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association. More market information, analysis and statistics are available by becoming a Canfax subscriber by calling 403-275-5110 or at www.canfax.ca. Active fed trade Alberta direct cattle sales saw active trade last week with dressed sales $2-$2.50 per […] Read more


WP livestock report

Hogs The U.S. national live price average for barrows and gilts was $42.88 per hundredweight Oct. 18, up from $41.92 on Oct. 11. U.S. hogs averaged $56.87 on a carcass basis Oct. 18, up from $56.27 Oct. 11. The U.S. pork cutout was $77.03 per cwt. Oct. 18, down from $77.52 Oct. 11. The estimated […] Read more

Supporters watch the results come in at the Conservative leader Andrew Scheer's campaign headquarters during the federal election in Regina.  |  REUTERS/Carlos Osorio

Life in the afterglow of the commodity boom: Is this why we’re all so mad and raging?

Everybody wants somebody to blame. Better blame Mr CommoditiesCycle

It’s a truly dark time in Canada, with the rise of an angry, raging, denunciatory politics taking over this nation the way that it has been doing in the U.S. for a few years now. The federal election supplied ample evidence of this, with ill will and personal attacks hanging over the entire campaign. Beyond […] Read more