(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

Major Alberta cattle feeder set to shut feedlots

Reuters — One of Canada’s biggest cattle feeding operations, Western Feedlots, said Wednesday it will close feeding operations after marketing the cattle it currently owns, due to poor market conditions. Closure of Western’s feeding operations, likely early in 2017 once its current cattle are sold, will make it more difficult for ranchers to find markets

(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

Klassen: Feeder market stabilizes

Western Canadian feeder cattle prices traded steady to $5 higher over the past week largely due to stronger U.S cattle markets. Alberta packers were relatively quiet but fed cattle prices in the U.S. southern Plains jumped US$5, reaching US$110. This sudden reversal caused Canadian feedlot operators to hold out for higher prices and the positive


Manitoba Crop Report and Crop Weather report: No. 21

Conditions as of September 19, 2016

Harvest 2016 continued across Manitoba, although wet weather, shorter days and heavy morning dews are impacting the number of acres harvested in any given day. Many crops are being harvested at tough or damp moisture levels, requiring aeration or artificial drying to achieve safe storage moisture levels. Some areas reported light frost events Thursday and

Barley is often less susceptible to fusarium infections, but near-perfect conditions for a month this summer set the stage for trouble.

Fusarium damage present in some early-harvested western spring cereals

It’s too early for the Canadian Grain Commission to have a complete picture 
but downgrading is occurring

Fusarium head blight has damaged some of Western Canada’s early-harvested spring and durum wheat, but it’s too soon to know the full extent. Daryl Beswitherick, the Canadian Grain Commission’s (CGC) program manager for quality assurance standards and reinspection, said they’ve been seeing signs in the early results from their harvest sampling program. “It is definitely


(DonaldJTrump.com)

Trump biofuel proposals echo those of backer Icahn

New York | Reuters — Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to weigh into a debate over a controversial U.S. biofuels program with a proposal that would back the position of billionaire investor Carl Icahn, one of his wealthiest backers. In a factsheet on economic policy, the Trump campaign slammed a system of



Southwestern Saskatchewan MP David Anderson (centre), shown here last year visiting Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s research facility at Swift Current, is the federal Tories’ new agriculture critic. (DavidAnderson.ca)

Anderson named federal Tories’ ag critic in shuffle

A vocal critic of the former Canadian Wheat Board single marketing desk for Prairie wheat and barley is now the lead agriculture critic in Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. David Anderson, the MP for the southwestern Saskatchewan riding of Cypress Hills-Grasslands since 2000, was named Thursday as the Conservatives’ critic for agriculture and agri-food by interim Tory

(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

Alberta to back new renewable energy capacity

Reuters — The Alberta government said Tuesday it will support the creation of 5,000 megawatts of additional renewable energy capacity by 2030 to help achieve goals laid out in its climate plan last year. Shannon Phillips, Minister of Environment and Parks, said Alberta now has a firm target of 30 per cent of electricity used