It’s shaping up to be a tough year on the crop-protection front. I don’t mean pests, diseases and weeds. For any producer, those are perennial challenges that will wax and wane with weather and pest pressure. I speak instead of the regulatory and legal fronts, where as you will read in our May 27 issue,
Editor’s Take: Crop protection under fire
Editor’s Take: Auto insurance in Manitoba is a red tape road
Every spring it seems like it’s Autopac season here in Manitoba. There’s a perpetual lineup at the local agencies as classic cars, motorcycles, recreation vehicles and farm trucks hit the road again for another year. It makes no sense whatsoever that we’re all required to attend, in person, at an office of an insurance broker,
Editor’s Take: Rain and high prices
A now-retired farmer friend says he defines a happy coincidence as when high prices and a big crop happen at the same time. But he also ruefully admits it would probably just as well be described as a ‘bloody miracle.’ He farmed more than 50 years and, during a recent text exchange, conceded that, “I
Editor’s Take: Coming and going
Farmers and the grain trade may have many common interests, but they are not perfectly aligned
What’s the right amount of oversight in Canada’s grain quality assurance system? That’s the fundamental question at the heart of an ongoing review of the Canadian Grain Commission and Canada Grain Act. As our Allan Dawson reports, many in the grain trade want to see the regulatory burden lighten. The Western Grain Elevator Association, which
Editor’s Take: Funding fairness
Few would argue the education tax system Manitoba’s had for the past few decades was a model for the future. It was a complex patchwork of competing interests and duplicated efforts. It saw one level of government set the tax rate, another collect it on its behalf, and the province turning around and refunding a
Editor’s Take: Playing the canola game
Two years ago, when China severely curtailed imports of Canadian canola by suspending the licences of Canada’s two largest grain companies, most saw a disaster about to unfold. The ginned-up claim was around the quality of Canadian canola seed, specifically pests like weed seeds and plant diseases such as blackleg. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency,
Editor’s Take: Governments need to provide clarity — quickly
The past year has proven — on many fronts — that the actions, inactions and inattentiveness of government can have an outsized impact on farms. As our reporter Geralyn Wichers writes in the March 25 issue of the Co-operator, the federal government has finally clarified the rules around farmers bringing temporary foreign workers into the
Editor’s Take: International relationship management
As an exporting nation Canada will always be dependent on maintaining decent relationships with other countries around the globe — and that’s frequently easier said than done. Think of our closest neighbour the U.S. A close relationship with it is inescapable, as it’s both right next door and an economic and military superpower. Ordinarily that
Editor’s Take: Kitchen aid
Earlier this winter I had the chance to give an old friend a call and spend an hour or so catching up. We were talking about how our lives have changed due to COVID and how we haven’t welcomed a lot of these changes, but some have actually been good. One thing we both remarked
Farmers Edge launches IPO
Digital ag firm makes first public share offering to big demand
Manitoba’s best-known digital agriculture firm is now a publicly-traded company. Farmers Edge, founded in 2005 in Pilot Mound, Man. by agronomists Wade Barnes and Curtis MacKinnon, has carved out a niche using field-centric data, artificial intelligence and its FarmCommand data management platform. CEO Wade Barnes called it an exciting day during an online press conference
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
