Burnett on Markets: Global grain stocks offer false sense of food security

Burnett on Markets: Global grain stocks offer false sense of food security

In event of production shortfall, 60 per cent of available stocks would never be available to market

The economic parallels from the COVID-19 epidemic are quickly changing from comparisons to the recent financial crisis in 2008-09 to the Great Depression. My parents and grandparents lived through the Depression and it did have many impacts on their everyday lives. The main symbol of the Depression-era mentality was the two enormous chest freezers in […] Read more

The No. 1 cause of compaction is working soil when wet.

How to minimize soil compaction on your farm

Compaction facts, how to tackle it and its effect on your farm’s bottom line

If you’re driving alongside your field before your crop comes up this spring, it will likely be very easy to see the paths your grain carts and combine drove last fall. Look a little closer and you might be able to see the lines your sprayer and even your seeder drove months before harvest. The […] Read more


Other than the immediate downside of ruts, there are long-term implications as well.

The real cost of ruts and what to do about them

Resist the urge to rip deep ruts deeper to break up compacted areas

As the winter’s snow melts across the Prairies, many western Canadian farmers are going to be disappointed to see that those deep ruts caused by last season’s wet harvest conditions are right where farmers left them in the fall. Inconvenient? Absolutely. Ugly? Yes, that too. But a big deal? In fact, ruts are much more […] Read more

Farm Financial Planner: How young farmers can fulfil financial needs now and in the future

Farm Financial Planner: How young farmers can fulfil financial needs now and in the future

Make a long-range plan to buy a house, educate your children and plan retirement

A couple we’ll call Molly and Frank, who are 30 and 33 years old, respectively, farm 1,400 acres of grain and pasture in Manitoba’s Interlake district. They have a new child, Emma, and are looking ahead to the time they will retire. That could be three decades in the future, but, though distant, the exercise […] Read more


The Seed Terminator.

Chaff management and mechanical weed control move into the limelight

Equipment available at home and abroad to destroy weeds and weed seed

[UPDATED: May 28, 2020] As resistance to our current herbicide options continues to increase each year, mechanical methods of weed control are moving into the spotlight. The management of weeds being spread by chaff via the combine is gaining attention, and interest is growing in mechanical weed seed impact mills — one of which is […] Read more

Saskatchewan farmers Josh and Jeannie Lade, along with partners, John, Janice, Rayden and Jenn Wiebe, imported two Seed Terminators from Australia to use on the 16,000 acres they farm.

The pros, cons and costs of owning a weed seed smasher

Josh Lade discusses his Seed Terminator and other weed seed-destroying equipment

Along with a growing number of others in Canada, Josh Lade would like his fellow farmers to consider mechanical harvest weed seed control to battle the growing number of herbicide-resistant weeds. With his wife, Jeannie, Lade grows cereals, pulse crops and oilseeds on about 16,000 acres in Osler, Sask., in partnership with John, Janice, Rayden […] Read more


(Alexey Rezvykh/iStock/Getty Images)

‘So far, so good,’ fertilizer sector says

Fertilizer Canada says vast majority of members have sufficient supplies in place or en route

There shouldn’t be any problems in supplying farmers with fertilizer this spring, says the organization representing manufacturers and distributors. “Our members are set to go,” Fertilizer Canada president and CEO Garth Whyte said in a news release Wednesday. “COVID-19 plans were quickly established at facilities, in conjunction with being declared an essential service, there was […] Read more

Froese: Risk, choice and opportunity — your farm’s transition

Froese: Risk, choice and opportunity — your farm’s transition

Start by looking at the challenges, creating solutions and beginning the process with a trusted adviser

Late last year I decided to stop listening to sad farm transition stories, proposing a new hashtag for Twitter #healingstories4ag. “Succession planning would be considerably less difficult if the long-term stability of the agricultural industry was more predictable. Given the current hurdles, long-term profitability is very uncertain! I do not wish to transfer an operation […] Read more


Some scrap steel pieces around the yard were welded together to create a sturdy extension for a gate post.

When a gate post is too short

Those odds and ends around the yard can be put to good use

Once upon a time in our barnyard, we had a gate that wouldn’t stay on its hinges because the gate post was too short to support it. It was hung on a good solid railroad tie, but the railroad tie was set too deep in the ground for that particular gate. The post wasn’t tall […] Read more

Bayer’s cross symbol hangs in a terminal at Frankfurt International Airport. (Typhoonski/iStock Editorial/Getty Images)

Proxy advisers split over endorsing Bayer management

Chemical giant to host AGM April 28

Frankfurt | Reuters — Shareholder advisory groups are divided over whether to endorse the management and directors at German drugs and pesticides company Bayer, according to recommendations submitted by proxy voting firms. Bayer is due to host its annual general meeting on April 28 but the company still faces potentially huge litigation risks stemming from […] Read more