Grandpa John poses with Joseph and James in the barley crop

Combines finally get rolling

Eppich News: Organic oats and ‘The Bread wheat’ among the first harvested

The beginning of August found us trying to finish baling the hay before the rain. Gregory was working on the ditch bales while I worked on the two hayfields. We finished right as the storm started. The lightning was hitting the ground very close to us and the thunder rattled the truck. While Gregory and […] Read more

(Greg Berg photo)

Oats values hold steady at harvest

MarketsFarm — The oats market in Western Canada is holding relatively steady despite seasonal harvest pressure, although yields failed to live up to earlier expectations. “Steady at harvest time is good,” said Scott Shiels, grain procurement merchant with Grain Millers in Yorkton. Prices often dip at harvest time due to increased deliveries, he noted, but […] Read more


(Dave Bedard photo)

Wheat crop to be second-largest on record, StatsCan predicts

Canola estimate at lower end of trade predictions

MarketsFarm — Canada’s farmers will have grown their second-largest wheat crop on record in 2020, according to the first production estimates of the year from Statistics Canada, as released Monday. The government agency pegged total wheat production in the country for 2020-21 at 35.74 million tonnes, up 10.5 per cent on the year and second […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

Canola crop expectations vary ahead of StatsCan report

MarketsFarm — Statistics Canada is due to publish its first production estimates for Canada’s 2020 growing season on Monday (Aug. 31). Late-season hot temperatures and a lack of rain may cause Canada’s canola production to be lower than originally expected, according to some market participants. Earlier in the growing season, Winnipeg-based FarmLink Agriculture Solutions published […] Read more


Even as conditions dried out in April, the cover crops hung in to provide feed and weight gain on yearlings.

Cover crops fit in SE Australia

Report from Down Under: Warm-season crops produced excellent gains on grass-fed beef

With rain forecast for the next four days (in early May 2020) I take pen to paper to write about cover crops in southeast Australia. Seeding is well underway for these crops along with cereals, pulses, legumes, forages and others. The rain we are receiving across a wide swath of this part of the country […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

Attention turns to yield potential after StatsCan report

Future tweaks to acreage numbers seen as unlikely to sway markets

MarketsFarm — Updated acreage estimates from Statistics Canada came largely within market expectations, with the focus now shifting to growing conditions and yield potential. The survey was completed in early June “and may not have captured all of the seeding delays and potential shifts that may have happened in central/northern Alberta and northwestern Saskatchewan because […] Read more


(Photo courtesy Canola Council of Canada)

Canola area expected to be lower in Monday’s StatsCan report

Later-seeded areas expected to add pulse, barley, durum acres

MarketsFarm — Market participants generally expect canola acreage will be revised downward in a second acreage estimate due out Monday from Statistics Canada. “There’s a lot of uncertainty about canola acres,” Ken Ball of P.I. International in Winnipeg said, noting acreage was “definitely lost” in central and northern Alberta due to wet spring conditions. In […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

Little change seen in June’s crop supply/demand tables

MarketsFarm — Supply/demand estimates for Canada’s major crops saw little change in updated tables released Tuesday from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Acreage estimates from Statistics Canada are due out June 30, and should lead to more sizeable adjustments in subsequent reports. Canola ending stocks were left unchanged at 2.6 million tonnes for the current marketing […] Read more


Cigi staff evaluate wheat flour for use in oriental noodles. (Cigi photo)

‘New’ Cereals Canada names board, chair

The merged Cereals Canada/Cigi unit held its first annual meeting

Alberta farmer Todd Hames was elected Monday as the chair of the board for the recently reconstituted Cereals Canada, at its first-ever annual meeting. The ‘new’ Cereals Canada was created June 1 when it and the Canadian International Grains Institute (Cigi) amalgamated after two years of discussions and the approval of their respective boards April […] Read more

Mike Martin, right and son Ali are part of the family operated mixed farming operation on Scotland’s  Black Isle peninsula, where they produce cereal crops, potatoes and beef.

Battling the Scottish weather and EU three-crop rule

Beef operation includes two-year-old ‘store’ cattle for finishing

Farming in the northwest of Scotland can be tough enough given the somewhat challenging weather, but having to fight over which crops to plant is an added hassle. Mike Martin runs Garguston Farm at Muir of Ord on the Black Isle peninsula, with his sons Ali and Johnnie operating a mixed crop and beef enterprise. […] Read more