(Richardson International video screengrab via YouTube)

Richardson crush plant workers to vote on new offer

UFCW team endorses latest offer

Unionized workers at Richardson International’s oilseed crush plant at Lethbridge, Alta. will vote Tuesday and Wednesday on a new offer from the company after rejecting a previous proposal. United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401 announced Tuesday (Jan. 25) its negotiating committee “fully endorses” the new offer after the company’s Richardson Oilseed division “enhanced […] Read more



Les Henry: Soil moisture map for 2022

Les Henry: Soil moisture map for 2022

The soil reserve we’ve become accustomed to over the past decade is just not there

It is no surprise to readers that this year’s freeze-up soil moisture map required a lot of red ink to print. In the Allan Hills, where my Dundurn farm is located, folks can drive combines with a full tank of grain through sloughs that needed a canoe to cross a few years ago. You do […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

Larger Canadian crops predicted in AAFC’s first 2022 outlook

MarketsFarm — A return to trend-line yields after the past year’s drought should lead to a significant increase in Canadian crop production in 2022, according to the first supply/demand estimates for the 2022-23 season from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), released late Friday. Seeded area is expected to be up for wheat and the pulses, […] Read more


ICE March 2022 canola (candlesticks) with 20-, 50- and 100-day moving averages (yellow, green and black lines). (Barchart)

ICE weekly outlook: Choppy canola trade expected

Old-crop 'likely pushing the upper limits'

MarketsFarm — A speculative selloff weighed heavily on the ICE Futures canola market during the week ended Wednesday, before the selling subsided and prices regained much of their lost ground. “For prices this high, that’s pretty routine stuff,” said Ken Ball of PI Financial in Winnipeg on the $80 per tonne drop in the nearby […] Read more

At the podium, Jeremy Boychyn, co-ordinator of the Plot2Farm program, introduces three Alberta producers, who have participated in on-farm research trials, to delegates attending the Prairie Cereals Summit, organized by the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions in December. Producers seated from left to right include Devon Hartzler, who farms near Carstairs, Wade McAllister, who farms near Innisfail, and Gord Ellis, who farms near Olds. Hartzler was involved in projects looking at different barley and wheat seeding rates, McAllister’s project looked at row spacing for wheat, while the 2021 project for Ellis evaluated the effectiveness of a PGR on barley.

A whole new approach to on-farm research

February deadline approaches for the next round of projects

Gord Ellis and Wade McAllister are two Alberta producers who say properly designed, field-scale, on-farm research projects over the past couple of growing seasons have provided some valuable information relevant to their farms. Both producers were involved in the relatively new Plot2Farm program developed by the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions. In 2020, Ellis, of […] Read more


A canola crop in an early pod stage in 2020. The demand for canola is in the industry's favour, says the president of the Canola Council of Canada.

Canola outlook: farmers face disruption, uncertainty and great opportunity

It was a difficult year for many canola producers across the Prairies in 2021 due to the historic drought, which lowered yields and, in the worst cases, wiped out crops completely. Supply chain challenges compounded the difficulties farmers faced created by the global pandemic. Jim Everson, Canola Council of Canada president, acknowledged these adversities in […] Read more

With dry conditions in southwest Manitoba in 2021, Bill Nicholson harvested a crop that was about a half to two-thirds of a normal yield. He’s expecting it to be another dry growing season in 2022.

Growers tailor their farm plans for 2022

Farmer Panel: Most are gearing up for dry growing conditions with average yields

After a dry 2021 growing season in most, but not all, parts of Western Canada, farmer panel members for our Jan. 18, 2022, issue of Grainews say they aren’t planning any crazy moves for the coming growing season. However, they will be making some adjustments in fertilizer application rates and crop rotations for 2022, while […] Read more


Federated Co-operatives in November 2021 secured an option on this land north of its Co-op Refinery Complex at Regina. (FCL.crs)

Co-op, AGT plan to crush canola at Regina

Crusher would feed FCL's planned renewable diesel plant

Federated Co-operatives’ plans for a renewable diesel processing plant at Regina now also include processing the canola oil needed to supply that plant. Federated Co-op (FCL) on Monday announced a memo of understanding has been signed with Regina grain and pulse crop processor AGT Foods on a joint venture that will “look to construct” a […] Read more