Foreign traders vying for piece of North American grain-handling sector

The urgency to operate in the United States or Canada has grown because of increasing global demand for crops

For decades, the world’s leading grain traders like Cargill and Bunge enjoyed an unparalleled advantage: their smaller North American competitors lacked the flexibility and diversity of a global operation, and their foreign rivals lacked access to the biggest and most stable exporters in the world. That’s about to change. Large U.S. and Canadian grain companies


Mosaic to dial back potash production

Citing “lower near-term demand,” fertilizer giant Mosaic Co. has announced plans to cut back the output from its potash mines in Saskatchewan for the next four months. Mosaic, which in late December said it would also reduce its finished phosphate production until the end of March, said Feb. 3 it will reduce its planned potash


In Brief… – for Sep. 8, 2011

Get on the list:Door-to-door enumeration for the October 4 provincial general election is complete, but voters who were not home when the enumerator called can still have their names added to the voters’ list, Elections Manitoba says in a release. Prospective voters can contact their returning office to arrange for an election official to visit


Monsanto Cuts Jobs Locally, Company-Wide – for Sep. 16, 2010

A job-cutting measure by Monsanto has eliminated two positions in Manitoba, eight in Canada and up to 700 overall. One management position and one administrative assistant position will be lost at Monsanto Canada’s head office in Winnipeg. Six positions in the company’s plant breeding division are also gone, including four in Guelph, one in Lethbridge

In Brief… – for Aug. 19, 2010

Pickups rise on U. S. theft list: Hauling power has made pickups a “group to watch” in an annual U. S. insurers’ study of vehicle theft losses. Models such as the Ford F-250/350, Chevy Silverado 1500, and Dodge Ram 2500 were found to be attractive “not only because of the vehicles themselves but also because

Cuba To Reorganize State Farms, Trim Bureaucracy

“The urgency of reducing imports and increasing food production has accelerated solutions to this old problem…” Cuba’s Agriculture Ministry will cut thousands of bureaucratic jobs and reorganize its large state-run farms into smaller plots in a bid to reverse steadily declining food output, official media said Nov. 10. Communist Party newspaper Granma said that 89,000


Pork Petition Gathers Steam

An online petition demanding federal aid for financially stressed Canadian pork producers had collected nearly 2,000 signatures earlier this week. The petition, initiated by a Winnipeg livestock feed company, demands “a federally sponsored emergency funding initiative” for “a fiscal bridge” to help hog farmers through their worst financial crisis in recent memory. “Failure to act

Monsanto To Restructure Roundup Unit

– Monsanto Chairman Hugh Grant “Over the last six years, Monsanto’s business has undergone a dramatic transition from a company historically built on chemical innovations…” Monsanto Co. posted a smaller-than-expected slide in quarterly profit June 24 and said it would cut jobs and realign its Roundup herbicide business as surprisingly strong competition hammered sales. The