EDITOR’S NOTE – for Nov. 6, 2008

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Buhler relaunches Versatile tractor brand

A storied brand name in the Canadian farm tractor business is coming out from under other companies’ logos for the first time in about 20 years. Winnipeg’s Buhler Industries, makers of the Buhler Versatile and Genesis tractor lines, announced last Thursday that Versatile will be the only brand associated with Buhler’s tractor division, which until


The life of a logo

Versatile’s history as a brand dates back to the mid-1940s in a Toronto backyard. That’s where Peter Pakosh in 1945 developed a new type of grain auger, as described in Versatile Tractors: A Farm Boy’s Dream, a 2003 coffee table book by Pakosh’s grandson Jarrod. The elder Pakosh’s company expanded into field sprayers and harrow

Machinery makers find shelter in global storm

In a world where heavy equipment sales are stalling due to the housing slump and credit crisis, the farm market is a rarity: a place where demand is still outstripping supply and many customers are still paying with cash. The question is: How long can the agricultural market shelter the equipment companies from the financial


Northerners push for more food self-sufficiency

Northern communities are gaining greater self-sufficiency in food, said Northern Affairs Minister Oscar Lathlin, speaking in Thompson last week at the Northern Harvest Security Forum. More northerners are growing garden and raising small animals such as goats and chickens thanks to the Northern Healthy Food Initiative, a series of programs aimed at reducing northerners’ dependency