Are U. S. Ethanol Producers Making Money Now?

The past year was challenging for the U. S. ethanol industry because at least a dozen ethanol plants filed for bankruptcy nationwide. However, profit margins for many plants have improved recently. This begs the question: Are ethanol plants making money now? Data provided by Iowa State University’s Agricultural Marketing Research Center shows ethanol production was

Could We Have One Too?

JOHN MORRISS EDITORIAL DIRECTOR “Pickles, no garlic.” That was one of the items on the shopping list, an unusually long one before Christmas when those of us blessed to live in Canada need to worry about having too much food, not too little. Among the brands was one which was almost a dollar cheaper, which


Hog Losses Cut Wide Swath

I was one of many who believed Saskatchewan, with its landlocked feed grain supply, was a logical place for the hog industry to prosper. Alarge number and individuals and businesses have lost money due to the demise of the Saskatchewan pork industry. Big Sky Farms, which is currently under creditor protection, is just the latest

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


Dawn Of The Decade Doggerel

JOHN MORRISS EDITORIAL DIRECTOR The holiday season is over, I hope you weren’t naughty Now it’s 2010, the end of the decade called “aughties” So it’s that time again, to which you all look ahead-fully Our year-end review in verse which rhymes dreadfully How time flies; I recall my first-ever annual bad-versification Cheered the end

Groundbreaking Moments In Global Agriculture

Chicago | Reuters – Organized cultivation of food crops like wheat and barley began about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, what is now the Middle East. Great strides in agriculture have been made since through innovation, technology and genetics to help feed the world’s growing population. Despite this, however, more than


Green Box Subsidies Can Also Distort Trade

Efforts to overhaul agricultural support in rich countries are increasingly under challenge for failing to remove the unfair distortions in global trade that they purport to eliminate, a new study says. The study by agriculture and trade economists, published by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), questions the thrust of farm negotiations

Letters – for Jan. 7, 2010

Bigger issues than climate change Pat Mooney, an Ottawa-based consultant and crop diversity enthusiast, addressed the NFU convention in Saskatoon in December, as reported by your Allan Dawson (“Crop diversity key to food security,” Co-operator, Dec. 10, page 16). In Mooney’s future, climate change will change everything in world agriculture, including what crops can actually


Open Letter To Transport Minister

I am writing to express the profound consternation all farmers have with CN Rail’s announcement of the delisting, or closing, of numerous producer car loading sites in Western Canada. Producer car loading sites are an absolute necessity if farmers are going to be able to exercise their hard-fought right to load rail cars themselves. If

A Holiday Wish

One of the intense pleasures of travel is the opportunity to live amongst peoples who have not forgotten the old ways, who still feel their past in the wind, touch it in the stones polished by rain, taste it in the bitter leaves of plants. So begins the 2009 Massey Lecture series by Wade Davis,