Tour attendees examine hemp plots in 2017.
 photos:ALEXIS STOCKFORD

Pushing the crop comfort zone

The winners and losers of WADO's experimental crop trials

Rice in Manitoba was a disaster. In 2012, in the Banana Belt region of the province near Melita, the staff at the Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization (WADO) seeded a plot of dry rice to see if they could bring it to harvest. The project fit with their role in Manitoba’s agricultural sphere: They risk the wreck, so


Rice is the modern-day canary in the coal mine warning farmers and governments alike that climate change carries real consequences.

Opinion: World’s most critical food faces uncertainty

The unsteady future of rice is a ‘singing canary’ for farms in general

Over 50 percent of the food calories eaten per day across the world comes from grains. In impoverished nations, that percentage is 60 per cent. In the poorest, it tops 80 per cent. The three most important grains are corn, wheat and rice. All are critical to global food security, but all are not equal.

As harvest looms, China tells farmers to replant or switch crops

Farmers say crops are stunted from lack of water, government sees “serious threat” to food production

As China’s record heatwave starts to subside, farmers are assessing the damage caused by a prolonged drought while the government is urging them to replant or switch crops where they can. More than 70 days of extreme temperatures and low rainfall have wreaked havoc along the basin of the Yangtze, which supports more than 450

File photo of a cornfield in the northern region of Luzon in the Philippines. (Nate Hovee/iStock/Getty Images)

Marcos vows to boost Philippines’ grains output

New president/ag min aims to avert food crisis

Manila | Reuters — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vowed Monday to do what it takes to boost his country’s rice and corn production, seeking to reduce reliance on imports and avoid being hit hard by a food crisis now looming across the world. Marcos, who was sworn in as president last week and has


File photo of wheat being loaded onto a bulk vessel at port in Russia. (YGrek/iStock/Getty Images)

‘Containergeddon’ drives sugar, rice shippers back to bulk vessels

New York | Reuters — Food traders are switching from containers back to dry bulk vessels to transport refined sugar and rice, hoping to avoid shipping delays caused by container shortages and port congestion the industry is calling “containergeddon,” according to traders. Container-based transportation has been hit by sky-high costs and delays amid booming shipping

Farmers arrive with blankets and mattresses for others at the site of a protest against farm laws at Ghaziabad, India on Jan. 29, 2021. (Photo: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui)

Son of India government minister arrested, accused of killing farmers

Junior home minister's son was 'not co-operating' in probe

Lucknow | Reuters — Ashish Mishra, son of junior home minister Ajay Mishra Teni, has been arrested on accusations he ran over and killed four protesting farmers last week, a senior police official said. The farmers, killed on Oct. 3 in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, were part of India’s longest-running agricultural protest, opposing



Japan ends 300 years of trading rice futures

Reuters – Japan’s Osaka Dojima Commodity Exchange will end trading in rice futures, it said Aug. 6, nearly 300 years after it began trading as the first product on the world’s oldest futures exchange. The last futures will trade in June 2022 when all outstanding rice contracts will have expired, ending trade that began in

Beyond Meat’s ‘latest iteration’ of its Beyond Burger gets to carry a Made in Canada label. (Photo courtesy Beyond Meat via Globe Newswire)

Beyond Meat lines up Canadian patty co-packer

U.S. company launches 'latest iteration' of burger line

One of the names tied closest to the plant protein-based meat substitute sector has enlisted an unnamed Quebec operation to make its beef-similar patties for the Canadian retail market. Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat on Wednesday launched the “latest iteration” of its flagship Beyond Burger, billed as “produced locally at a co-manufacturing facility in Canada” and