Editorial: Time to change

Editorial: Time to change

Afew years back, while working as a writer for our sister publication Country Guide, I spoke at some length with Saskatchewan-based agriculture economist Murray Fulton, about how farm policy is typically set in Canada. He told me that what tends to happen is something he called “punctuated equilibrium” — which is to say that Canadian

Queen Victoria's statue at the Manitoba Legislature. As in North America, Britain's farmers are considered by many to be political and economic conservatives by birth and disposition.

Brexit: ‘Taking farmers for fools’

U.K. farmers find themselves torn between their innate conservatism and 
economic interests that may be best served by staying in the EU

With electronic ignition, fuel injection and more computing power than the space shuttle, today’s cars and trucks never backfire. Our politicians — with less horsepower and far less memory — often still do. The latest may be British Prime Minister David Cameron who, during his 2015 re-election campaign, promised British voters a referendum on whether


Feds seek ideas for Growing Forward 3

Feds seek ideas for Growing Forward 3

A new website from the federal Agriculture Department gives growers a chance to have their say on farm programs

Now’s your chance to tell the federal government how farm policy should look in Canada. The federal Agriculture Department has set up a website to seek feedback on what is and isn’t working in Growing Forward 2 (GF2) and what should be in Growing Forward 3 (GF3). In a statement, Lawrence MacAulay, the federal agriculture

Concept of making money agriculture

Editorial: Stuck in time

Is it time for a fundamental rethink of Canada’s agriculture trade policy? That simple question is, these days, tantamount to heresy in the agriculture sector, long preoccupied with trade issues. However, a new policy note from the independent research group Agri-Food Economic Systems in Guelph, Ontario, suggests it might be worth asking. The research team,


Farmer in wheat field

Canadian wheat growers hit by subsidy effects

Advanced developing nations subsidize wheat growers, 
hurting farmers from exporting nations

Canadian farmers are among those being disadvantaged by wheat subsidies in advanced developing countries like China, India, Turkey and Brazil, according to two U.S. groups. The U.S. Wheat Associates and the U.S. National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) pegged the annual cost to Canadian farmers at about 249,000 tonnes in lost sales and $251.9 million

Dead sunflowers stand in a field in Dickinson, North Dakota January 21, 2016. The collapse of U.S. oil and gas investment could have further to fall and Americans are showing signs they spend less of their windfall from lower gasoline prices than in the past, darkening the outlook for the U.S. economy.

The nature of agricultural supply

Farmers don’t respond to supply-and-demand signals in the same way as other business operators

As we lay out the social and economic model that provides the foundation for our analysis of agricultural policy in its myriad forms, we begin by looking at the economic characteristics of agriculture, particularly the areas where agriculture does not operate in the same ways as other businesses and industries with which most people are


Outside investment in farmland not driving up prices

The emergence of farmland investment funds brings more opportunities than pitfalls

The purchase of farmland by outside investors offers opportunities for the agriculture community, which needs new financial tools to deal with a surge in farm sales during the next few years, the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture says. High crop prices and low interest rates have driven up land prices as many farmers

Larger farms face five per cent EU subsidy cut for 2013

Reuters / Farmers who receive more than 5,000 euros a year in European Union subsidies will see payments above that level cut by five per cent this year, to bring farm spending in line with proposed EU budget cuts. The European Commission will propose the move after its forecasts showed that farm subsidies for 2013,


Farm subsidies still get top share of EU austerity budget

France and other major farming nations thwarted 
attempts to shift farm spending to growth and jobs

Farm subsidies will continue to gobble up the biggest share of the European Union’s budget to 2020, despite a 13 per cent drop in future agricultural spending, under a deal struck by EU leaders Feb. 8. Agriculture’s budget supremacy was secured after France and other major farming nations thwarted attempts by Britain and its northern

EU farm subsidy reforms cut payments to the wealthiest farms

Europe’s wealthiest landowners, including Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Spain’s Duchess of Alba, will see deep cuts to their future farm subsidies under proposals from members of the European Parliament Jan. 23. Annual payments to the top recipients of agricultural subsidies should be capped at 300,000 euros from 2014, the European Parliament’s influential agriculture committee said.