U. S. Farmers Feeling Financial Squeeze

Lending by commercial banks may be less than desired, but farm banks are continuing to finance the sector even though some borrowers are not doing so well, an executive of a major U. S. agricultural bank said. Samuel Miller, senior vicepresident of agribusiness and food banking at Milwaukeebased M&I Bank, the seventh-largest U. S. farm

Warm, Wet Summer On The Way

Canadian farmers who pulled off some big high-quality crops last year despite volatile weather appear to be in line for a warmer, wetter summer, said David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, Jan. 11. “That’s a pretty good-news situation,” Phillips said in an interview with Reuters. “I think most farmers would go to the bank


Potash “Oligopoly” May Crack In Longer Term

“The oligopoly’s discipline has formed the backbone for the group’s valuation.” – DAHLMAN ROSE AND CO. REPORT Amajor U. S. investment bank following the potash sector sees a “ratcheting up” in the sector’s risk profile that may suggest a possible shift in market competition in the longer term. In a recent report on its longer-term

Cheap Loans Buoy Canada Farmers In Recession

Canadian farmers have survived a year of recession with the ratio of debt to equity little changed and optimism still in place, said a key official with Canada’s top farm-lending institution. Cheap access to credit in Canada, in contrast to that in the United States, has been the key to the relatively buoyant agriculture economy,


Take Biofuels To The Non-Bank Bank

It was more a wavering non-waver than another government oldie but goodie, a non-denial denial. Still, nothing in the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Dec. 1 delay to grant the ethanol industry’s request to boost the current 10 per cent ethanol limit in gasoline to 15 per cent suggested it won’t happen – and soon.

Hog Program May Lend Less Than Expected

“I know the industry is short a billion dollars.” – andrew dickson, mpc Pork producers worry that a federally guaranteed loan program for the financially troubled hog industry may lend only a fraction of the money originally hoped for. Ottawa has set aside $400 million in cash as a reserve to backstop special long-term loans


Is Africa Selling Out Its Farmers?

For centuries, farmers like Berhanu Gudina have eked out a living in Ethiopia’s central lowlands, tending tiny plots of maize, wheat or barley amid the vastness of the lush green plains. Now, they find themselves working cheek by jowl with high-tech commercial farms stretching over thousands of hectares tilled by state-of-the-art tractors – and owned

TD Predicts Higher Prices, Lower Incomes

Canadian farmers should get slightly better prices for their crops and livestock next year, but rising input costs could mean they earn less net income, the Toronto Dominion Bank said Nov. 5. A firming of global supply-demand conditions and an easing in the value of the Canadian dollar in next year’s third and fourth quarters


Youth Learn About Moving Stock

Dawn Hnatow sure knows how to take the fun out of being a cowboy. Hnatow, livestock manager for Addison Ranch in Bowie, Texas, didn’t even ride a horse when she was working stock during her seminar on low-stress livestock handling held in conjunction with the Wheat City Stampede and Horse Expo. By the end of

Frost contunied from page 1

Frost , from page 1 while stem rot causes plants to break and fall over, making harvest difficult. Phoma stem rot, which also causes plants to break, has infected some fields too. Sclerotinia is common in sunflowers now because growers are pushing their rotations, not allowing a big enough gap between when they grow sunflowers