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


Bags of Canadian green lentils sit at AGT Food and Ingredient’s processing plant in Mersin, Turkey. It’s expected that only 50 to 60 percent of this year’s crop will make the top grade.  |  File photo

Quality worries may hike lentil prices

Growers advised to wait until markets are past harvest lows and expect ‘modest gains’ of about 0.5 cents per pound


Farmers lucky enough to harvest good quality green peas and green lentils might want to lock the bins and wait for prices to climb, says a market analyst. “Don’t get too worried about selling right now thinking that it’s only going to get worse throughout the year,” said Chuck Penner, analyst with LeftField Commodity Research. […] Read more

Agriculture Canada is forecasting a bloated 4.5 million tonnes of carryout at the end of 2019-20. A senior executive with Viterra believes it could be closer to eight million tonnes.
 | File photo

China’s canola ban results in tough crushing decisions

The curtailment of canola exports to China is creating a golden opportunity to add crush capacity in Canada but at the same time preventing it from happening, says an industry official. “Blocked seed access to China makes it much more attractive to have processing in Canada,” said Brian Innes, vice-president of public affairs with the […] Read more

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, right, and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer welcome Chinese vice-premier Liu He before reaching a Phase 1 trade deal in Washington, D.C., Oct. 10.  |  REUTERS/Yuri Gripas photo

Looming election, slowing economy prompts trade deal

Just an hour before U.S. President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with China on Oct. 11, I had sent a column to my editor with the following lead sentence. “The negative effects on agriculture of the United States-China trade war are temporarily moderating but I expect the game-changing deal that the Trump administration originally […] Read more


Canada doesn’t have to abandon its commitment to the rules-based international trading order just to survive in the new era of me-first politics.  |  REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker photo

Current trade environment not just an either/or scenario

At some point we might have to accept that this new trade reality is actually real. And we’ll have to react to that reality by changing the way we farm, act and interact with the rest of the world. That’s something quite a few Canadians are grappling with in light of the ongoing and no-end-in-sight […] Read more

Australia is facing a second drought-ravaged crop in two years, which would likely spark another spring wheat rally.  |  REUTERS/Jason Reed photo

Spring wheat rally unlikely to be short-lived

Harvest conditions have been terrible on the Prairies and northern U.S. Plains, and Australia’s crop is in trouble again

Poor harvest conditions in Western Canada and the northern Plains of the United States have led to a spring wheat price rally and there is likely more to come, says an analyst. The December futures spread between Minneapolis and Kansas wheat was about $1.25 per bushel as of late last week. That is well above […] Read more