New year, new deal in the U.S.?

New year, new deal in the U.S.?

Opinion: The U.S. budget and Farm Bill led to plenty of eyeroll-worthy moves in 2023

The pain I felt late Sunday, Jan. 7, was hard to pinpoint until I realized exactly when it had struck: just moments after hearing news of a tentative, 2024 budget deal between U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives negotiators. As such, it soon became apparent the pain wasn’t physical. Most likely, it was emotional.

Jill Verwey speaks to delegates at the 2023 KAP Annual General Meeting Jan. 24.

KAP elects first female president

Farmer and long-serving board member Jill Verwey has Keystone Agricultural Producers' top job

Keystone Agricultural Producers has its first female president in the 39-year history of the organization. Jill Verwey was elected president at KAP’s annual meeting in Winnipeg Jan. 24. She replaces Bill Campbell, who has served in the position since 2018. Why it matters: Manitoba’s general farm policy organization has a new person at the head



An employee loads wheat near a grain store in the settlement of Raduga in Stavropol Region, Russia June 30, 2021.

Putin’s drive to tame food prices threatens grain sector

The move to address domestic concerns could make a key competitor less competitive

During a televised session with ordinary Russians in late June, a woman pressed President Vladimir Putin on high food prices. Valentina Sleptsova challenged the president on why bananas from Ecuador are now cheaper in Russia than domestically produced carrots and asked how her mother can survive on a “subsistence wage” with the cost of staples

Editor’s Take: The political winds are blowing

For those who care about such things, it’s been an eventful few days in politics, both provincially and federally. Here in Manitoba, Brian Pallister, the only Manitoba premier in many years to have grown up on a farm, confirmed speculation that he won’t be leading the Progressive Conservatives into the next campaign. And federally, the


Manitoba Crop Alliance fills corn committee

Manitoba Crop Alliance fills corn committee

The new delegates have been voted onto the body by their farming peers

Four farmers have been elected to the Manitoba Crop Alliance’s corn committee. Dean Toews (MacGregor), Carl Bangert (Beausejour), Emile Morin (Otterburne) and Hubert Preun (St. Andrews) were the elected delegates with the highest number of votes. Following the crop committee delegate nominations in September and October five names were put forward for four positions on

Comment: Election winds blowing big change in U.S.

In the recent U.S. election, one of the most prominent Dem losers was longtime ag committee chairman Collin Peterson. The race to be the new chair is already underway. The three front-runners — Georgian David Scott, Californian Jim Costa, and Ohioan Marcia Fudge — each represent a different direction. Scott and Fudge are stronger advocates

File photo of U.S. President Donald Trump taking questions from reporters in March 2019. The U.S. election held on Nov. 3, 2020, has not given the 45th president a second term in office.

Editor’s Take: Electoral train wrecks

I was texting with a retired farmer acquaintance this week about the U.S. election while he was deer hunting in the sandhills of western Saskatchewan. Like a lot of Canadians, he wanted to follow the unfolding events, even though he wasn’t in a reliable cellphone service area. So I’d agreed to keep him filled in


Iowa, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Indiana are being considered swing states – each also ranks among the country’s top 10 agricultural-producing states.

Opinion: No winner for Canadian farmers

No matter the outcome of the U.S. election, subsidies are going to keep flowing

No matter who wins the upcoming election in the United States, Canadian farmers can expect to continue facing tough competition from their heavily subsidized peers south of the border. Fairly early in his 2016 election bid, it became clear producers saw Trump as the favoured candidate. His nationalist rhetoric helped win farmers over. A candidate

Comment: Now would be a good time for some honest dishonesty

As the U.S. election looms, it makes one pine for simpler political times

Somewhere in southern Illinois there’s a high school yearbook that contains a photo of me and another student leaning against a classroom wall on either side of a 1972 campaign poster of a smiling Richard Nixon. The caption writer, another student, notes that my buddy and I are “standing” with our man, the then incumbent