When the weather gods curse prairie farmers, crop contractors have to offer act of God clauses, it seems. That’s how farmers are looking at contracts like the new Archer Daniels Midland Nexera canola contract that contains an act of God clause. “On the Prairies, we’ve seen such wild variability (in the weather) for the past […] Read more
News
Contract clause recognizes weather risk
Petroleum industry seeks new ways to improve environmental performance
RED DEER, Alta. — Energy companies install 13,000 kilometers of pipelines in Alberta every year, affecting 40,000 acres of land. Farmland is taken out of production, forests are removed and wetlands and water courses are disturbed during construction of trenches and pipelines. Ongoing complaints to resource companies about loss of productivity and harm to the […] Read more
CWB to spend $1.4 million on ad campaign
The Canadian Wheat Board is spending $1.4 million on a national advertising campaign aimed at galvanizing public support and convincing the Harper government to abandon plans to end single desk grain marketing. The campaign, which began last week with a full page advertisements in several major newspapers, will include newspaper ads, radio commercials and television […] Read more
Alta., B.C. promised more seats in Commons
The Conservative government is promising to pass legislation soon that will give Alberta and British Columbia six new seats each by the 2015 election to get them closer to proper representation. Along with 15 new seats planned for suburban Ontario, it is expected the expanded parliamentary base could be fertile political ground for the Conservatives. […] Read more
Alta. maltster expands
Rahr Malting plans to spend more than $6 million to expand barley storage capacity at its malting plant in Alix, Alta. Bob Sutton, vice-president of sales and logistics, said the expansion will include the construction of three 9,000 tonne storage bins. Construction will begin immediately and should be complete by next summer. The bins will […] Read more
Take action against potato late blight
Potato growers should check their seed potatoes to ensure they don’t carry late blight into next season. Robert Spencer, a commercial horticulture specialist with Alberta Agriculture, said late blight can survive on seed potatoes even though plant foliage is frozen and dead. Planting tubers infected with blight can result in late blight infection next year, […] Read more
Gun registry end pleases MP
He is not the sponsor of the government bill to end the long gun registry and doesn’t have his name on it but Saskatchewan MP Garry Breitkreuz’s fingerprints are all over it. In many way, the veteran Yorkton- Melville MP is the godfather of Bill C-19 to scrap the registry and then destroy its 16 […] Read more
Litigants mum on legal costs
It’s shaping up to be a bumper harvest for legal firms involved in Canadian Wheat Board lawsuits. The number of farmer-funded lawsuits stemming from proposed legislative changes to the CWB increased by two last week. On Oct. 26, wheat board chair Allen Oberg announced that the wheat board would launch a lawsuit against the federal […] Read more
Technology makes farming profitable, feeds poor
Watch for a special report about the coexistence of GM crops with conventional and organic crops in the coming weeks in the pages of The Western Producer. The solution to the world hunger crisis is not growing more crops, says the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization s. “The main cause of hunger in the […] Read more
Corn moving westward on Prairies
DUVAL, Sask. — Corn is moving closer to a permanent place in Saskatchewan crop rotations, if Brad Hanmer’s recent hybrid grain corn results are any clue. The Duval producer recently harvested a 65 acre field of two Pioneer Hi-Bred corn varieties: P7443RR and P7213RR. The corn stood 2.5 metres tall, nestled between the community’s old […] Read more
