Last week’s passing of former Archer Daniels Midland CEO Dwayne Andreas at age 98 serves to remind of his remarkable success and his influence on the world grain trade, including here in Canada. In 1993, Andreas was in Winnipeg to receive an International Distinguished Entrepreneur Award from the University of Manitoba. A few journalists got
Dwayne Andreas founded the ‘Supermarket to the World’
Former ADM chairman used his connections to build the world’s largest grain and oilseed processor
Editorial: Stepping back
I first heard the words Manitoba Co-operator in the mid-1960s, when my father Bill Morriss, a Free Press reporter at the time, came home wondering why the editor kept offering him a job. “What do I know about farming?” Not much, but then editor Q.H. Martinson was looking for a successor, and he wanted a good newspaperman,
Comment: A great mind and a great character
The name Roy Atkinson used to be one of the most mentioned in the Manitoba Co-operator, but it’s been awhile since it appeared. Our digital search records go back to 2007 and since then Roy’s name comes up just once, in an interview with Allan Dawson at the National Farmers Union 40th anniversary annual meeting
Editorial: Too many organizations
A few years ago, a group of Japanese wheat millers was touring the Canadian Wheat Board building in Winnipeg. In the transportation department, where there was a large wall map showing all the rail lines in Western Canada, they received the standard presentation on logistics. The presenter explained that to save distance and costs, wheat
Editorial: Animal welfare comments on chicken housing not helpful
Some representatives of the egg industry didn’t do it any favours in news coverage last week. In a video on the Globe and Mail website, one Ontario farmer explained how he was moving from conventional cages to “enriched” housing, which the entire Canadian industry has decided to do, although over the next 20 years. He
Editorial: Who will feed China?
Perhaps Chinese politicians, like ours, are prone to using jargon, or maybe it’s the fault of whomever translated the speech from the original Mandarin. Either way, we got a chuckle out of this introduction to a Reuters story last week. “China’s agriculture sector needs to undertake supply-side reform, especially in corn production, given bumper harvests
Doggerel 2016
The tree is took down, there’s no more left of the turkey It’s a new year in farming, and for many, the future’s quite murky But not for our readers, who know that from time immemorial That we clearly predict the future in the new year’s editorial But first we look back at the past
Editorial: GHG-reduction policy not a bad deal
The chart in last week’s Winnipeg Free Press article on the Manitoba government’s new policy to reduce greenhouse gas neatly illustrated some of the interesting but complex implications for agriculture. It listed Manitoba’s top GHG-producing facilities, and No. 1 by a wide margin is the Koch nitrogen fertilizer plant at Brandon. The No. 2 emitter
Opinion: What’s the futures market telling us?
“Listen to what the futures market is telling you.” That came up in our news feed again last week, and it’s one of those phrases for which you’d like to have a dollar for every time you’ve heard it. It ranks slightly below the frequency for which you’ve heard a grain market adviser tell you
Opinion: Here we go again
First, the bad news. Farmers around the world did a great job last year. The good news? Farmers around the world did a great job last year. Such is the unfortunate reality of the grain market. As speakers at last week’s Cereals North America conference in Winnipeg said, the world is “awash with grain,” which
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
