Alberta Moisture Buoys Cow Bids

– Scott Anderson,General Manager,Winnipeg LIVESTOCK SALES “With the rain comes pasture and there is now demand for cows in that region.” Marketi ngs of cattle in Manitoba during the week ended July 17 were once again confined to roughly three locations in the province as the summer slowdown remained in place. Values for feeder cattle

Early For Grain, Late For Forage

“If I want them for a feedlot-based production system, I’d be willing to pay a premium for the early-calved steers because I can get them ready for slaughter 2.5 months earlier.” – HUSHTON BLOCK Calving on grass in the spring is not only easier on the rancher and the vet bills, it’s also cheaper in


The Looming Food Crisis?

We are not trying to pick a fight with the scientists and companies who provide the basic research on GMOs, just their pitchmen… their arguments are disingenuous at best and blackmail at worst. We tend to cringe when we hear someone argue that food production is not keeping up with demand. We heard Earl Butz

Revised ICE Canada Barley Futures Should Help Price Discovery

The newly revised Western barley contracts on the ICE Futures Canada platform are slowly building their open interest and should eventually provide a better mechanism for price discovery and risk management, according to traders and industry participants. The revised barley contracts started trading June 22 with the November 2009 contract the nearest month. The major


Summer Sales To Move Mostly “Odds And Ends”

DWAYNE KLASSEN RNI “A lot of Manitoba’s producers do not like the idea of having to (age verify) but if they don’t, the price for their cattle may all of a sudden be discounted by a larger percentage than they would like.” – Scott Anderson, Winnipeg LIVESTOCK SALES The numb er of cattle making their

Losing Another Friend

JOHN MORRISS EDITORIAL DIRECTOR In the space of less than a week, the Co-operator has lost two of the farm voices that are so important to us and our readers. Last week we had to report Paul Beingessner’s death in a farm accident. On Saturday, we joined others in a packed hall in Fraserwood to


Letters – for Jul. 9, 2009

Move in new livestock direction Governments have once again chosen political expediency over science. They are doling out another $37 million to the hog industry. Why? Because, in the words of the minister of agriculture, “the false connection to the H1N1 flu,” is unjustly damaging the industry. She makes no mention of how she reached

Glen Nicoll — A Good Friend Passes

Just before press time Monday, we learned that Glen Nicoll, a longtime market columnist for the cattle industry in Manitoba, lost his battle with brain cancer early June 29. This is the second tragic loss that we report in this issue – columnist Paul Beingessner died last week in an accident on his farm in


Western Prairie Cattle Culled Due To Drought

The numb er of cattle making their way to the auction yards in Manitoba continued to decline during the week ended June 19. Prices for cattle were said to have held steady, but that was due mainly to the pull-back in the value of the Canadian dollar. “This is the time of year where activity

Plant Breeder Hopes African Development Takes Root

For Gebisa Ejeta, it was not enough that he developed new varieties of a food staple crop that resisted droughts and a devastating weed that sucked the life out of cereal crops in his native Ethiopia. Ejeta, who was awarded the 2009 World Food Prize on Thursday, was really driven to get the seeds he