Comment & Farming Articles - Manitoba Co-operator

The rain dilemma for U.S. corn, soybeans

Localized storms are making widely used weather models less meaningful to the market 

By Karen Braun August 14, 2017

Rain has been falling across the U.S. Corn and Soybean Belt this month but crop ratings have been low or declining, a sign that some farmers may be getting too much moisture while others have parched fields. Because summer storms have been so localized, the two leading weather models used by traders may be little

Comment, Opinion

If push comes to shove, Canadians will abandon supply management

It won’t be high milk prices that kills supply management, it will be the prospect  of better trade terms with the U.S.

By Andrew Enns, Carlo Dade August 8, 2017

Canadians’ support for supply management for dairy, eggs and poultry — which has been presented as rock solid — evaporates when confronted with the tough choices that must be made in the coming renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. This is critical information for the Canadian government and Canadians themselves to understand as

Comment, Comment/Feedback, Other

Amazon set to take a bite out of the food industry

Given its ability to fuse efficient distribution and strategic market insight,  the e-commerce giant could well become the leading food retailer in North America

By Sylvain Charlebois July 24, 2017

Amazon is intent on becoming the world’s most powerful retailer, with the help of food sales. Amazon’s US$13-billion takeover of Whole Foods isn’t shocking. It’s been rumoured for months. Now the mammoth Amazon, with its large revenues and small profits, has confirmed those rumours by making the biggest deal in its history. And acquiring troubled

Comment, Futures markets

Corn sizzles, then fizzles

A major buyback by speculative funds drove the recent market action

By Karen Braun July 4, 2017

Speculators axed a massive short position in the corn market within 11 days earlier this month. And what do they have now to show for it? Lower prices. Specs, usually hesitant to become buyers in such an oversupplied market, bought nearly one billion bushels of corn in the form of CBOT futures and options –

Comment, Comment/Feedback

Comment: Are you at risk?

Risk assessment, not blind fear of hazards, lets us all live our lives

By Cam Dahl June 26, 2017

Should GM be labelled? Is organic healthier? Does glyphosate cause cancer? Do you put your kids at risk if you feed them meat or is the caveman diet the way to go? Your good friend and neighbour thinks Gwyneth Paltrow is right about all this stuff, is she correct? All of these questions, and a

Comment, Comment/Feedback

Serving up an unpalatable minimum wage

The effects of artificial intelligence and the rise of the digital world will force us to rethink  how we produce, process and distribute food

By Sylvain Charlebois June 21, 2017

Governments jumping on the $15-an-hour bandwagon are missing an opportunity to look at how the next technological revolution will affect our food systems. And that’s a shame. The minimum wage is rising in many parts of the country. Recently, Ontario announced it would raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour, to match Alberta. In

Comment, Opinion

It’s time to make soil great again

Continuing to lose topsoil will make it harder to feed a growing population

By David R. Montgomery May 29, 2017

David R. Montgomery is a professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is author of the award-winning non-fiction book, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, and his latest book, Growing A Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life was to be released in May. This article was originally published

Comment, Machinery

Comment: Agriculture’s greatest innovation

Farms are still dangerous, but they’ve got a lot better over the years

By Alan Guebert May 24, 2017

In my youth, May brought two noticeable changes to the big Lutheran Church my family faithfully attended. The first was heat. No building on earth better held daytime heat from Mother’s Day through Reformation Day than that century-old house of worship. The second was the season’s short-sleeved parade of lost limbs, a brutal testament to

Sonny Perdue, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.

Comment

Sonny’s big adventure

The putative U.S. agriculture secretary has a tall order ahead of him to boost trade

By Alan Guebert May 9, 2017

Those Wisconsin dairy cows at the centre of another trade kettle now boiling between the United States and Canada, a friend suggests, aren’t really black and white Holsteins. They’re tiny, yellow canaries, he opines, and their tweets — not President Donald J. Trump’s — are a warning that America’s reign as the world’s ag export

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump speaking at a joint news conference earlier in February 2017.

Comment, Dairy cattle

Comment: Trump’s milk shake

Our dairy producers are now facing change, forced upon them by outside forces

By Sylvain Charlebois April 28, 2017

For the first time U.S. President Donald Trump has acknowledged that he knows of the existence of supply management, also known by the global community as Canada’s milk cartel. For years dairy farmers in Canada have been resistant to any change or reform to their policies. With NAFTA 2.0 on its way, Canadian dairy farmers

Daily Network News

Feds pause update on food from cloned livestock

U.S. livestock: Cattle futures end limit down

AAFC makes few changes to November S/D report