A freighter is loaded with grain from a terminal at Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet. (Maxvis/iStock/Getty Images)

Grains sector backed to develop export rejection insurance

Code of practice for 'sustainable' crops also in works

The organization representing Canada’s crops sector will get public funding to develop an insurance plan against the “unpredictability” of export customers. Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, speaking Wednesday at the CropConnect conference in Winnipeg, announced over $430,000 for the Canada Grains Council to develop a pilot insurance product for grain exporters. Such an insurance plan

Motorcyclists queue for fuel at a station in Khartoum on Feb. 10, 2020.(Photo: Reuters/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah)

Sudan to continue to subsidize bread but with ‘justice’

Khartoum | Reuters — Sudan will continue to subsidize bread prices during transitional rule after Omar al-Bashir’s ouster but wants to achieve “justice” in distributing income supports, its trade and industry minister said on Wednesday. Bread shortages, caused by difficulties in raising hard currency to import wheat, triggered mass protests which — with the help


(Dave Bedard photo)

Bunge profit tops estimates on South American results

Chicago | Reuters — Agricultural commodities trader Bunge reported a stronger-than-expected quarterly profit on Wednesday as rising crop prices boosted farmer sales in South America and swelled margins in its large agribusiness segment, sending shares up more than three per cent in pre-market trading. But uncertainty about global trade and demand for Bunge’s food and

Manitoba farmers say grain drying costs are significant and the carbon tax is adding insult to injury.

Alberta program to cost-share grain dryer upgrades

Applicants under previous FEAP plan eligible

Alberta plans to use federal and provincial funding to help grain growers cut the energy bills from grain drying with more fuel-efficient equipment. The provincial government on Friday announced what it’s dubbed the Efficient Grain Dryer Program, backed by $2 million from the Canadian Agricultural Partnership federal/provincial funding framework. Applicants can get 50 per cent


CN locomotives in Winnipeg. (Photo courtesy CN)

CN could shut parts of network over pipeline protests

Reuters — Canadian National Railway said Tuesday it would be forced to shut down parts of its network unless rail line blockades in protest against a natural gas pipeline in British Columbia are removed. The protests of recent weeks are seen as a flashpoint for indigenous rights and reconciliation and demonstrators on Tuesday also blocked

CBOT March 2020 wheat with 20-, 50- and 100-day moving averages. (Barchart)

U.S. grains: Wheat sags on adequate world supplies, fund selling

Corn follows wheat lower; soy flat

Chicago | Reuters — U.S. wheat futures fell to a seven-week low on Tuesday as signs of adequate global supplies and softening world cash prices triggered a round of what appeared to be fund-driven long liquidation, analysts said. Corn futures also fell while soybeans ended flat to fractionally higher after the U.S. Department of Agriculture


(ThamKC/iStock/Getty Images)

Ethanol woes spur new feed focus for Green Plains

Biofuel maker to reinvent itself as DDGS-based feed maker

Chicago | Reuters — Green Plains Inc., one of the biggest U.S. ethanol producers, is planning to flip its business model upside down to survive a crash in prices for the corn-based fuel. The company will invest some $400 million in the next two to three years at its 13 plants to make high-protein, corn-based

A spray plane flies over a swarm of desert locusts at Lemasulani village in Kenya’s Samburu County on Jan. 17, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Njeri Mwangi)

Drones to be tested against Africa’s locust swarms

U.N.'s FAO testing drones to detect, spray pests

Nairobi | Thomson Reuters Foundation — The United Nations is to test drones equipped with mapping sensors and atomizers to spray pesticides in parts of east Africa battling an invasion of desert locusts that are ravaging crops and exacerbating a hunger crisis. Hundreds of millions of the voracious insects have swept across Ethiopia, Somalia and



A University of Oxford study says oat milk is a “guilt-free option.”

Oat ‘milk’ gets high marks

It’s now the fastest-growing dairy alternative in the U.S.

If you’re a dairy producer, you won’t think much of the alternative “milks” reviewed in a recent article in the U.K.’s The Guardian. But if you grow oats, you might be a bit less rankled. The article claims dairy milk is an environmental “disaster” and quotes a University of Oxford study which says it results