Editor’s Take: Getting with the times

Editor’s Take: Getting with the times

I have many memories, when I was a kid, of trips to the elevator. We’d roll up the driveway and earthen ramp, into the building and over the pit. The man on duty that day — and back then it was always a man — would greet my father as we stepped off the scale.




(Dave Bedard photo)

AAFC adjusts grain, oilseed balance sheets slightly

MarketsFarm –– Updated supply and demand tables from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), released late Friday, included only minor adjustments to balance sheets for the country’s major crops. The department’s projected ending stocks for wheat and canola were left unchanged from the previous month. Factoring in the official estimates from Statistics Canada, released Dec. 3,



“COVID hit the beer industry hard," Kevin Sich of Rahr Malting said.

Bad cheer for beer

A rough year for North American barley quality and quantity means a tough year for maltsters and brewers, training program hears

A bad year for barley means maltsters and brewers will have to get creative on where and how they get their malt. “The North American brewing industry in general is going to be facing a lot of challenges this year,” said Peter Watts, managing director of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC). Watts spoke


A sunflower field in north Winnipeg in 2018. Total sunflower seed production fell more than 20 per cent in 2021.

Manitoba crops down across the board: StatCan

From spring wheat to dry beans, Manitoba farmers self-reported lower yields

Manitoba farmers reported a decrease in production of spring wheat, canola, soybeans, corn for grain, oats, barley, dry beans and sunflower seeds. The 2021 estimates come from a StatCan survey of 3,133 Manitoba farmers conducted from October 8 to November 12. Spring wheat Total spring wheat production fell 29.2 per cent to 3.7 million tonnes



(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

Klassen: Feeder market stabilizes

Cow-calf producers selling sooner than normal

Compared to last week, western Canadian feeder cattle prices traded $2-$3 on either side of unchanged. Alberta packers were buying fed cattle on a dressed basis at $275 delivered; the Alberta fed market has rallied $10-$12 over the past couple weeks. Secondly, U.S. feeder cattle prices have also rallied US$10-US$12 during the same time frame

(Dave Bedard photo)

Canola declines, durum drops in new StatsCan estimates

Soybean, oats estimates raised

MarketsFarm — There were very few surprises in Statistics Canada’s latest principal field crop production estimates released Friday — the first in 2021-22 to use a survey of producers. Nevertheless, they quantified just how severe last summer’s drought was in Western Canada. Canola production for the 2021-22 marketing year was estimated to be 12.595 million