MASC supports growing projects: Starting this year, the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp. will waive hail insurance premiums for the maximum available coverage (currently $150 per acre) on up to 160 acres of land per eligible Canadian Foodgrains Bank project in Manitoba. A project must have an AgriInsurance contract to sign up for hail insurance and must be endorsed the CFGB growing project co-ordinator Harold Penner. Registration forms can be downloaded from the CFGB website: http://www.foodgrainsbank.ca/registering_your_project. aspx . – CFGB Help please: The Manitoba Cattle Producers Association met with Manitoba Agriculture Minister Stan Struthers Jan. 19 to promote three programs it wants introduced to help maintain competitiveness in the cattle industry. It wants a Cattle Production Insurance Program, Rapid Eradication Approaches for Bovine Tuberculosis in the Riding Mountain Ecosystem, and support for Specified Risk Materials (SRM) removal.

“It is essential these programs are included in the 2010 Provincial budget,” the association said in a release. Tryst costly: A Malaysian court has fined a man and a woman four buffaloes and a pig after they were found guilty of an extramarital affair, according to a report in the Star newspaper in Borneo.

The pair was convicted after the man’s wife lodged a complaint after she found her husband wearing shorts at his second home with her colleague, who was wearing a sarong. The judge ruled there was strong evidence the pair had had a tryst, and under customary local laws was ordered to compensate their communities with the livestock. Hard sell: U. S. President Barack Obama asked Congress Feb. 1 to slash crop subsidies to “wealthy farmers” and to pare federal support for crop insurance, moves estimated to save $10 billion over 10 years.

The administration plan would end crop subsidies to people with more than $250,000 adjusted gross income from off-farm sources or more than $500,000 on-farm AGI. The caps now are set at $500,000 off-farm AGI and $750,000 on-farm AGI. But the cuts will be a tough sell for Congress with mid-term elections looming.

Record shipments:

Shipping of grain and related products through Canada’s biggest port hit a record 18.1 million tonnes in 2009 as exporters moved two straight years of big crops to markets, Port Metro Vancouver said Feb. 1.

The volume of grain, specialty crops and feed jumped 33 per cent from 2008 at the port. The port’s overall volume of 101.9 million tonnes declined 11 per cent from 2008. The record grain volumes were a result of moving large leftover supplies from the 2008 harvest and a bigger-than-expected 2009 crop, according to the port.