Farmers could benefit financially from this trend

Farmers could benefit financially from this trend

Farm Financial Planner: Urban dwellers pay high prices for small land parcels

There is a trend for city folk to buy country property to get away from the COVID-19 virus, city lockdowns and everything else associated with the world pandemic. It’s a pattern of outmigration from densely populated cities. Farmers are potential beneficiaries. They can sell small parcels at relatively high prices. I have found city folk […] Read more

Photo of a Nestle facility. (Nestle via Flickr)

Nestle to shut Ontario foodservice processing plant

Trenton facility to close in mid-2022

Global food processing giant Nestle plans to shut a southeastern Ontario plant and move its work to sites in the U.S., citing a “highly competitive” market. The company announced Thursday it will start to wind down work late this year at the Nestle Professional plant at Trenton, where dehydrated dry-blend and frozen products are made […] Read more


Screenshot of Parrish and Heimbecker’s Quill Lake, Sask. elevator. (ParrishAndHeimbecker.com)

Rail upgrades planned for P+H elevator

Eastern Saskatchewan elevator's rail spot expanding

Winnipeg grain firm Parrish and Heimbecker plans to boost throughput at one of its eastern Saskatchewan elevators with upgrades to its rail car loading systems. Privately-held P+H said Thursday it plans to expand to a 100-car spot, up from 50, at its elevator at Quill Lake, Sask., about 60 km east of Humboldt. Work on […] Read more

Charred remnants of a rail bridge destroyed by a wildfire on June 30 are seen during a media tour by authorities in Lytton, B.C. on July 9, 2021. (Photo: Reuters/Jennifer Gauthier)

Lytton bridge re-opened but grain movement ‘hit and miss’

B.C. wildfires continue to disrupt Prairie grain movement

Canadian National Railway’s fire-damaged bridge at Lytton, B.C. reopened for traffic Tuesday — but all train movement, including for grain, through British Columbia’s wildfire-ravaged southern Interior, is “hit and miss” and will remain so until the fire risk lessens. “Both (CN and Canadian Pacific Railway) are having troubles because there are so many fires in […] Read more






An undated photo from CN’s media gallery shows a locomotive travelling through the Ashcroft, B.C. area. (CN.ca)

CN, CP trains ordered to slow down against fire risk

Ministerial order in effect until Oct. 31

A new federal ministerial order calls for Canada’s big two railways to significantly cut their train speeds in any areas deemed to be at an “extreme” fire risk. “With extreme weather events occurring more severely and frequently in Canada due to climate change, it is important to have an adaptive regulatory system that responds to […] Read more


People queue up outside a public supermarket’s doors in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, in April 2015. (iStock/Getty Images)

World Food Programme starts distributing food in Venezuela

Reuters — The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said Wednesday it had begun distributing school meals to children in Venezuela, where some seven million people require humanitarian assistance after years of economic collapse in the once-prosperous OPEC nation. The WFP’s first take-home rations were distributed for children under six years old at some 277 schools […] Read more

The Blair’s agro centre at Lipton, Sask. (Blairs.ag)

Co-op, Blair’s joint venture to sell one crop input centre

Regulator sees overlap between Co-op, Blair's at Lipton

A new joint venture formed to run seven existing crop input retail centres in central and southeastern Saskatchewan will settle for six. The federal Competition Bureau on Wednesday announced an agreement with Federated Co-operatives (FCL) and the ag retail arm of the Saskatchewan-based Blair’s Family of Companies toward approval of their proposed joint venture. Blair’s […] Read more