Most financial professionals will tell you to keep one hand on your wallet when someone doesn’t want you to look at the books. From non-profit community groups to major corporations, the numbers don’t lie. If funds have been misallocated or things aren’t quite on the level, it can’t truly be hidden. No matter how hard
Editorial: Follow the dollars
Editorial: Mystery meat
A paradigm shift appears to be coming quickly down at the fast-food drive-thru. Last week A&W Canada announced a new meat-free burger, touted as just as good as ground beef. It has partnered up with Beyond Meat, a company that’s attracted capital from sources such as Microsoft mogul Bill Gates and A-list actor Leonardo Dicaprio.
Editorial: Unknown origin
“Life, uh… finds a way.” Those words, uttered by actor Jeff Goldblum in the 1993 science fiction blockbuster “Jurassic Park,” leapt to mind last week with word that a genetically modified wheat had been found along a field access road in southern Alberta. Goldblum’s character was blue-skying about exactly how a cohort of all-female dinosaurs
Editorial: Come together
Probably the single word that best expresses the fundamental nature of the agriculture sector when it comes to policy is ‘fractious.’ Looking at the synonyms for this word is a revealing exercise: stubborn, irritable, testy, unruly, disorderly, ornery, scrappy, touchy, and my personal favourite, indomitable. It’s a sector that loves a good fight and, by
Editorial: Similar but not the same
After decades of watching the sector consolidate around them, it seems as though agriculture industry associations and groups have now decided this is also the right strategy for them. We’ve seen a handful of Manitoba commodity groups working together and now promoting the concept of a merger into a single larger group. The aim is
Editorial: In the weeds
Canada has a brewing weed problem, and we’re not talking about the looming legalization of cannabis. This is an older problem, but with a modern twist, in the form of constant selection pressure from chemical control products and the resulting herbicide-resistant weeds. Manitoba farmers have the dubious distinction of being among the first in the
Editorial: End of an era
[UPDATED: May 17, 2018] This week a chapter in the agriculture history of Manitoba quietly closed. Winnipeg has loudly proclaimed itself the heart of Canada’s grain trade since the early days of commercial agriculture on the Prairies. Nothing represented that more than the trading of grain-based derivatives, an important economic activity in the downtown core
Editorial: A silver lining
No one would look at the ongoing struggle to move grain to port position this winter as a positive thing. It’s been a long and exhausting grind for everyone involved from the farmer through to the railways. Challenging weather met understaffed and underequipped railways and the result was poor service, scant grain movement and expensive
Editorial: Farmland goes ‘loonie’
Farm Credit Canada’s most recent survey of farmland value in Canada landed this week, with a gentle thud. Thud because it showed surprisingly durable gains in farmland values, despite the lower crop values of the past several years, which economic theory at least initially suggests should not be the case. J.P. Gervais, FCC’s chief agricultural
Editorial: Scorecard needed
As the Winnipeg Jets mount what promises to be an exciting playoff run, casual hockey fans find themselves at a disadvantage. No doubt more than a few tuned in to the first couple of games last week and were surprised to find a member of the famed Stastny clan had joined the ranks of the
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
