(File photo by Dave Bedard)

Canadian and U.S. shippers brace for possible CP strike

Strike notice not yet given

Winnipeg | Reuters — Thousands of workers at Canada’s second-biggest railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, have threatened to strike this week, potentially disrupting the movement of grain, potash and coal at a time of soaring commodity prices. The strike is the latest risk to Canada’s battered supply chain, which last year weathered floods in British Columbia

The Nutrien Redwater Fertilizer plant near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Oct. 7, 2021.

Nutrien eyes Russian invasion causing prolonged global fertilizer disruption

Reuters – Canada’s Nutrien, the world’s biggest fertilizer producer, said recently that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could result in prolonged disruptions to the global supply of potash and nitrogen crop nutrients. Interim chief executive Ken Seitz said Nutrien will boost potash production if it sees sustained supply problems in Russia and Belarus, the world’s second-



Soil biology is garnering more attention as crop input costs rise.

Farmers test microbes to nourish crops as climate pressure grows, costs rise

Soil biologicals are getting a lot of attention — and research money — in the past couple of years

Reuters – Tech companies are raising hundreds of millions of dollars, including backing from agriculture heavyweights like Bayer AG, in developing farm products that use living things like microbes and seaweed to nourish crops and lessen the need for synthetic fertilizer. Microbes, including fungi and viruses, have been available for decades as treatments to protect


File photo of a view near the Canadian end of the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Windsor and Detroit and is considered one of North America’s busiest trade routes. (Steven_Kriemadis/iStock/Getty Images)

Pandemic border protests strand cattle and car parts

Ottawa | Reuters — Protests in Canada against vaccine mandates have disrupted two key U.S. border crossings, and are snarling hundreds of millions of dollars daily of trade, ranging from cattle to car parts. Demonstrations who at first demanded an end to federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates for cross-border truck drivers began Jan. 28 in the

File photo of Canpotex potash cars. (Dave Bedard photo)

Nutrien eyes potash production boost amid turmoil in Russia, Belarus

Idled Saskatchewan mines could be restarted

Winnipeg | Reuters — Nutrien, the world’s biggest potash miner, could boost production by up to 29 per cent in coming years, depending on any sanctions facing rival producers in Russia and Belarus, the Canadian company’s interim CEO told Reuters. Prices of granular potash fertilizer are near 10-year highs in the United States and Brazil,



Photo: iStock/Getty Images.

Transport strains pile on drought-induced feed shortages

Importing U.S. corn not cheap

Winnipeg | Reuters — Canadian farmers say they are just days away from running out of feed for cattle, due to severe drought last summer damaging crops needed to fatten them over winter and transportation bottlenecks. The drought devastated Prairie pastures and has now forced feedlots in Alberta, the main cattle-producing province, to buy more



Bulalo, a Filipino soup dish made with boiled bone-in beef shank. (Jun Pinzon/iStock/Getty Images)

China, Philippines suspend beef imports from Canada on BSE case

Winnipeg | Reuters –– China and the Philippines have suspended imports of Canadian beef due to Canada’s detection in December of a cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a spokesperson for Canada’s agriculture department said on Monday. The moves follow an import suspension by South Korea last month, after Canada reported its first BSE