That’s because, regardless of how the insured structure is built, if destroyed it will have to be rebuilt to the new and more complex code.

An Ontario member of the Canadian Farm Building Association’s board of directors advises farmers to resist the temptation to under-insure if they feel ill-equipped to pay the increase.

“Insurance companies don’t have a choice; they have to rebuild to the building code (after a loss),” Ken Worsley, chief operating officer of Nova Mutual Insurance Co., told Glacier FarmMedia recently.

Worsley made contact after publication of an article detailing planned farm-related upgrades to the National Model Codes, including the farm building code but also those related to fire safety, plumbing and electrical safety.

“This particular issue has huge impacts for insuring these barns going forward as we will need to place higher limits on these barns in order to replace them when needed due to a loss,” he says.

Worsley says farmers who plan new buildings must be aware of how the code changes will add to the cost of such components as trusses, bracing and fire separation areas.

The NFBC hasn’t changed since 1995. Since then, there have been huge transformations in knowledge about potential loss due to a changing climate and to the scale of the average farm building. From the perspective of insurance companies, this has created an environment in which many farm losses are now “curated” through “facultative reinsurance” strategies.

In the past, Worsley says, insurance companies operating in Ontario typically had enough financial capacity to cover whatever farm losses were incurred by their clients in any given year. This is no longer the case.

Nova Mutual can handle a farm loss that calls for a $9 million payout to replace what was insured, he says. Above that, it calls on specialized reinsurance companies to cover the remainder.

“In Ontario, there have been several (barn) fires this year that have pierced that facultative reinsurance barrier,” he says.

He estimates the average replacement cost on a Canadian dairy farm, which he said continues to follow a trend of fewer total farms coupled with significantly larger land base, cow numbers and building size, at $20 million. Some run as high as $60 million.

Worsley says the cost to insurance companies for facultative reinsurance has risen significantly “due to catastrophic events (over the) last four years.” Already, farm clients have possibly seen these increased costs passed to them in the form of higher premiums.

With the updated NFBC coming into effect, premiums will almost certainly continue to rise. Worsley describes it as the insurance companies’ continual race to maintain their ability to pay out for potential losses.

“If everything was insured to (full replacement) value, we wouldn’t have to take a rate increase for five years because we would have enough premium to cover it,” he said.

The cutoff date for the 2012 building code is March 31, 2025 — that is, provided a project’s working drawings were complete before Jan. 1, 2025. Any project started after this date will be required to have drawings that are designed to the updated 2024 building code.

Stonecrest Engineering’s Bram Van den Heuvel, speaking to Farmtario recently about the new building code, estimates the 2024 code will result in a 20 per cent increase in costs for design, material and labour. That means insurance companies won’t be able to bankroll full replacement value without raising their rates.

Worsley advises farmers to be proactive. That doesn’t mean taking a fine-toothed comb to their policy and determining where they can avoid maintaining coverage.

“We don’t want people suddenly to start under-insuring their farms,” Worsley said. “We don’t want people to have to go to (a farm lender) and say ‘I need to borrow another $1 million’ (to pay for replacing the elements from which insurance was removed). That’s not what we want for their insurance experience.”

Most farm insurers have loss prevention specialists who can make recommendations, based on a farm visit, for measures to prevent or mitigate potential losses. These recommendations may seem inconsequential and inconvenient to some farm owners but they are based on available data about the causes of insurable losses.

And when a farmer follows through on recommendations within the suggested timeline, “the underwriter’s pen will get a little sharper” in highlighting acceptable risks that the insurer can include in the policy.

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Now imagine those scale models placed on a unique, custom-built display environment that has special meaning to the recipient, perhaps placed in a diorama duplicating part of a particular farm. It’s the kind of thing that can elevate a gift of a scale model to the next level.

That’s something brothers Peter and John Comben of Saskatoon, Sask., focus on as a sideline. They operate JPS Excavating in the city, but they also run Construction Models CA.

The Combens displayed some of their inventory and custom-built displays at the Ag in Motion farm show in July.

“This is really the first time we’ve brought them out to a show,” says Peter.

The Combens can even modify a particular model themselves to create a more accurate representation of a certain machine. “That’s something John did a lot of over in England,” says Peter. “Custom design booms and attachments, that sort of thing. We got into doing the dioramas in the last two years.”

“We’ve had good success with corporate promos, retirements, gifts or for someone who has bought a machine,” he adds.

The brothers also retail regular die-cast farm and construction models. They have even created models of machines from scratch when a commercially available model isn’t available. And when it comes to building an interesting scene to display them in, just about any type of farm diorama is possible.

“We can put models into a scene or a diorama (to display them),” adds John. “I’m always coming up with new ones to build.”

The Comben brothers can be reached by emailing JPSexcavating@hotmail.com or by phoning Peter at 306-361-5943 or John at 306-291-5942.

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Provincial Agriculture Minister Lana Popham and her federal counterpart Marie-Claude Bibeau on Monday announced cost-shared funding of $228 million for the Canada-B.C. Flood Recovery for Food Security Program, which is now taking applications.

That includes funding via AgriRecovery, the disaster relief segment of the Canadian Agricultural Partnership funding framework. AgriRecovery is a 60-40 federal-provincial program provided where needed to help farmers cover “extraordinary costs” borne in a natural disaster. A similar AgriRecovery program was rolled out in September in response to drought and wildfire damage in the province.

Heavy rains and flooding in mid-November in the province’s south swamped farms and created mudslides that killed four people, caused billions of dollars in damages and temporarily cut off road and rail access to Vancouver from points east.

The federal government has already separately budgeted about $5 billion through its Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (DFAA) to help cover non-farm-related losses from the flood damages in the region. Funding was previously made available to livestock producers to help cover immediate feed costs.

Flood damages in the farm sector alone are believed to include more than 1,100 farms, over 35,000 acres and 2.5 million head of livestock, in areas ranging from the Sumas Prairie at Abbotsford east and northeast to Merritt and Princeton. Farm-related losses alone are estimated at about $285 million.

In the case of the flood recovery program announced Monday, funding is to go to cover farmers’ “extraordinary expenses from uninsurable damages” not already covered by other programs. Costs covered under the new program would include:

• cleanup, repair and restoration of land, barns and animal shelters, water and waste systems, and returning flood-impacted land and buildings to “a safe environment for agricultural production;”
• repair of uninsurable “essential” farm infrastructure and equipment plus “reasonable” repair of on-farm structures such as livestock fences and drainage ditches, as well as rental of temporary production facilities or pastures where needed;
• replacement feed and other animal welfare costs including livestock transportation and veterinary care for injured animals; deadstock disposal for animals killed in the flooding; support for destroyed beehives and colonies; and
• loss of perennial plants not raised for resale, such as blueberry plants.

Popham said funding may also be available to help remediate farmland contaminated by floodwaters.

The province said it will deliver the Flood Recovery for Food Security Program with a combination of AgriRecovery and DFAA funding. AgriRecovery will focus on larger farms, with annual sales over $2 million, providing up to 70 per cent compensation for eligible costs.

Farms with less than $2 million in annual revenue, meanwhile, would be eligible for up to 90 per cent compensation, for which the province would seek reimbursement through the DFAA.

Farmers who plan to apply for funding under the program but have already started work and incurred eligible expenses are advised to keep receipts, track hours of work involved and take pictures documenting damage and repairs.

Popham, speaking along with Bibeau at a press briefing Monday, said farmers who had already applied separately for disaster financial assistance before now can expect to be contacted by the ag ministry; others may now start applying through the new program.

Popham described November’s flooding as “the most impactful agricultural disaster ever in our province, resulting in profound losses” for producers.

“We’ve worked closely with farmers and farming organizations to make sure we have a comprehensive response that will support their recovery, help them get their farms back in production, and continue our collective efforts to build a resilient food system and food economy in B.C.”

Affected farmers enrolled in the federal/provincial AgriInsurance (crop insurance) program are also advised to contact the provincial ag ministry to open claims if they’ve not already done so.

Farmers also still have time to apply for the AgriStability income stabilization program for the 2021 program year, and can seek interim payments under that program, the province said Monday. That program may also help farmers cover losses in stored crops, nursery plants and livestock. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Australian-British mining firm BHP announced Tuesday its board has approved its potash mine about 60 km southeast of Humboldt, near Jansen, Sask., for another $7.5 billion in development to completion.

At full production, the Jansen mine is expected to yield about 4.35 million tonnes of potash per year, with a position in the “world’s best potash basin” allowing for further expansion. The mine is expected to operate for up to 100 years.

First ore is expected in 2027, with full construction expected to take about six years, followed by a two-year ramp-up period, the company said in a release.

In development since 2010, Jansen lines up with BHP’s current strategy of “growing our exposure to future-facing commodities in world-class assets, which are large, low-cost and expandable,” BHP CEO Mike Henry said in the release.

Its entry into the potash business gives it “increased leverage to key global mega-trends, including rising population, changing diets, decarbonization and improving environmental stewardship,” the company said.

“This is an important milestone for BHP and an investment in a new commodity that we believe will create value for shareholders for generations,” Henry said, noting the mine will be designed with a “focus on sustainability, including being designed for low GHG emissions and low water consumption.”

Getting Jansen to first-stage completion will involve design, engineering and construction for an underground potash mine and surface infrastructure including a processing plant, product storage and a “continuous automated rail loading system.”

The mine’s potash will be railed out for export via the Westshore coal terminal at Delta, B.C. as per a recently announced agreement with terminal operators. The approved funding also covers the infrastructure needed to handle potash at Westshore.

BHP’s investment until now at Jansen has run up to about $5.7 billion, including construction of the shafts and associated infrastructure — already about 93 per cent complete, the company said Tuesday — and engineering, about 50 per cent completed.

The company said Tuesday it has previously acknowledged its “significant initial outlay” at the site, adding that “our approach would be different if considering the project again today.”

“The positive economic impact of this decision for our province cannot be overstated, as the Jansen mine will generate tens of billions of dollars in taxes and royalties and create thousands of quality jobs for the people of Saskatchewan,” provincial Energy and Resources Minister Bronwyn Eyre said Tuesday in a separate release.

Operations at the company’s mine and Saskatoon corporate office will create over 600 jobs in the province, along with about 3,500 jobs at peak construction, Henry said.

‘Excess capacity’

As for the mine’s impact on potash fertilizer markets, BHP said it “anticipate(s) that demand growth will progressively absorb the excess capacity currently present in the industry, with opportunity for new supply expected by the late 2020s or early 2030s.”

That time period, BHP said, is “broadly aligned with the expected timing of first production from Jansen.”

Past the 2020s, BHP said, the industry’s long-run trend prices are “expected to be determined by Canadian greenfield solution mines.”

Solution mines, the company said, tend to consume more energy and water than conventional mines like Jansen, and also have “higher operating costs and higher sustaining capital requirements.”

BHP’s 2010 proposal to build the Jansen mine originally charted a more aggressive pathway into the Saskatchewan potash sector, first by buying junior miner Athabasca Potash, then by launching a takeover bid for Saskatchewan fertilizer giant PotashCorp.

BHP later dropped the PotashCorp bid after it was rejected by both the Saskatchewan and federal governments.

Earlier this year, news reports had quoted unnamed sources as saying BHP was in discussions with Nutrien — formed by the 2018 merger of PotashCorp and fertilizer rival Agrium — about the latter firm taking a stake in the Jansen mine. Nutrien later scotched those reports as “speculative and inaccurate.” –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Brandt Tractor, the equipment sales arm of the Regina-based Brandt Group, on Monday announced an agreement to buy all of publicly-traded Cervus Equipment Corp. for $19.50 a share, valuing the Calgary-based chain at about $302 million.

Cervus’ holdings today include 22 Deere dealerships in Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C., 17 Peterbilt dealerships in Ontario and Saskatchewan, eight forklift dealerships in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, seven Deere dealerships in Australia and nine in New Zealand. Another Deere dealership is due to open at Penhold, Alta., near Red Deer, next year.

Cervus dates back to 1982, when the company’s current chairman Peter Lacey bought five Deere dealerships in Alberta. It listed on the TSX in 2000 and went on to buy further outlets across Canada, expanding also into New Zealand and Australia in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

Brandt Tractor, meanwhile, operates 56 dealerships across Canada, selling Deere equipment such as skid steers, dozers, excavators and feller bunchers and also handling sales and service for brands such as Ditch Witch, NPK, Hammerhead and Topcon.

Brandt CEO Shaun Semple said Monday the addition of Cervus would see Brandt Tractor shift its dealership chains into three new segments “dedicated to serving the agriculture, transportation and material handling industries.”

Those segments, he said, “will further establish Brandt as a total solutions provider across our diverse customer groups.”

“As a private company with a committed, well-capitalized and long-term owner, Cervus will be better positioned for the next stage of evolutionary growth for our dealerships,” Cervus CEO Angela Lekatsas said in the same release.

“The size and scale of the entity created by the combination of our two companies will allow for increased investment into Cervus for the benefit of our employees and customers.”

John Deere Canada and Peterbilt Motors have already consented to the change of control, Brandt and Cervus said in their release.

Brandt and Cervus said they expect to close the deal sometime in the fourth quarter of this year, pending the outcome of a special meeting of Cervus shareholders to be held sometime in October.

Among Cervus shareholders, Lacey, who holds about 18 per cent, has already locked into an “irrevocable” agreement to vote his shares in favour of the Brandt deal.

Other Cervus directors and officers, who in all hold about one per cent, have “revocable” agreements in place to vote in favour. Also, as of Monday, Brandt and affiliates together hold about nine per cent of outstanding Cervus shares.

Brandt said its proposed deal represents a 37 per cent premium to the 20-day volume-weighted average price per Cervus share for the period ending Aug. 13.

Cervus on Monday also announced its best-ever second quarter, booking $14.88 million in adjusted before-tax income for the period ending June 30, up from $8.08 million in the year-earlier period. Gross revenue from sales and service for the period came in at $402.3 million, up from $340.97 million in Cervus’ 2020 Q2.

Ag equipment revenue specifically was up 10 per cent in the quarter, “primarily driven by increased customer demand for new equipment, supported by strong market fundamentals in all our geographies.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The company is working toward full operation at the world’s largest pea plant by early 2022, she said.

“To date we have picked up hundreds of loads of peas from growers and we are using these peas to fine-tune and commission our processing and quality assurance systems at the plant,” Finley, the company’s communications and public affairs manager, said via email.

Construction of the 200,000-square foot facility, costing about $500 million, was completed late last year, and Roquette purchased peas to calibrate the production equipment.

“Our goal is to have consumer-ready protein available during the summer of 2021 and the plant will reach full production capacity in early 2022,” Finley said.

Ground was broken for the plant in 2017, but work was delayed for more than a year as Roquette upgraded its design, with construction resuming in October 2018.

Once operating at full capacity, the Roquette plant will be able to process about 125,000 tonnes of yellow peas per year. Also, the plant is able to process conventional and organic peas, with plans to buy 5,000 tonnes of Manitoba-grown yellow peas during the first year of operations.

Up to 120 people will be employed at the plant, Finley said.

Prices for yellow peas have been steady for about the last month, but have climbed more than $4 per bushel during over the last year, according to Prairie Ag Hotwire. Prices currently range from $9.25 to $11.25 per bushel.

Nearly 4.6 million tonnes of peas were produced in Canada in 2020, according to Statistics Canada. Of that, about 2.5 million tonnes were in Saskatchewan, with 1.8 million tonnes in Alberta, while Manitoba harvested about 246,000 tonnes.

Roquette has said it fully expects the amount of peas produced in Manitoba to increase.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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Trump said over the weekend on Twitter he would issue the permit, which he signed on Monday but was released by the White House late on Tuesday. Projects that cross the U.S. border require presidential permits.

The Alaska-Alberta Railway Development Corporation (A2A Rail) project would move Alberta crude 2,570 km to the Alaskan coast, as well as freight in the other direction.

Backers of the US$17 billion project hope it will be in service by the end of the decade.

Calgary-based A2A said in a release Tuesday, however, that it’s ready to begin “soft construction” this year, and estimated its completion at that rate in 2025 and operation in 2026.

A2A would still require numerous regulatory clearances in the U.S. and Canada that would likely take years.

The company said Tuesday it would work with U.S. and Canadian federal, state and provincial government entities to “minimize” the project timeline.

The proposed rail line could carry up to two million barrels of oil per day, along with potash, sulphur and grain that often back up at Vancouver, said Mead Treadwell, A2A’s vice-chair for Alaska.

The company’s chairman, Canadian financier Sean McCoshen, said Tuesday the project “could unlock $60 billion in additional cumulative (gross domestic product) through 2040 and create more than 28,000 jobs.”

Moving commodities and other goods out of ports in Alaska, the company said, could also reduce end-to-end shipping times between North America and Asia by as much as two to four days.

Trump’s permit, McCoshen said, is “a significant milestone that will greatly assist with our continued efforts.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Eric Beech in Washington. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The gain in producer prices followed four months of consecutive decreases and matched a flash estimate released by the statistical agency earlier this month.

StatsCan said the May increase was driven by higher prices for meat, fish and dairy products as well as gains in energy and petroleum products. Of the 21 major commodity groups monitored by the agency, six rose, 11 fell, and four were unchanged.

Meat product prices rose 13.3 per cent, led by fresh and frozen pork, which increased a record 31.3 per cent as disruptions in the supply chain from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and higher demand for meat products contributed to the gain.

Earlier this month, StatsCan had said it expected meat prices would rise following outbreaks of COVID-19 in Canadian and U.S. meat plants that forced operations to shut down or reduce capacity.

Meanwhile, prices for energy and petroleum products rose by 4.6 per cent.

In a separate release, the national statistical agency said Canadian building permits rose 20.2 per cent, the largest percentage increase since March 2009, as some provinces eased constraints imposed on the construction industry due to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the May figure was still 20.4 per cent below the peak seen in January 2020, StatsCan said.

The value of residential permits was up in six provinces, rising 18.7 per cent, with most of the gains due to a jump in the value of permits in single-family homes, which rose 37.5 per cent. Meanwhile, commercial permits jumped 20.8 per cent.

— Kelsey Johnson reports on Canadian economic issues for Reuters from Ottawa.

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The Regina-based Brandt Group announced Wednesday it has reached a deal to buy the assets of GeoShack Canada Co. and the Canadian assets of Inteq Distributors, both owned by Dallas-based Ultara Holdings.

In Ontario, GeoShack is billed as the “long-time exclusive supplier” for Topcon Positioning Systems equipment, including sales, service, and rentals of GPS and other equipment for the ag, construction, survey and engineering industries, through locations in Toronto, Ottawa and London.

California-based Topcon’s agricultural products include precision seeding, spraying and harvest equipment as well as autosteer and guidance systems.

Formed in 1995, Geoshack expanded to Ontario in 2003 when it merged the Toronto- and Exeter-based businesses of Laserline Ontario with those of three other independent distributors in Texas, Ohio and Michigan. Outside Ontario it will still have 16 U.S. locations in eight states.

The GeoShack deal, on top of Brandt’s “pre-existing Topcon footprint” in Western and Atlantic Canada — and a new separate agreement in which Topcon has assigned distribution rights to Brandt for the Quebec market — makes Brandt “the exclusive dealer for Topcon construction and geopositioning products for all of Canada.”

“The territorial expansion of the Brandt operation will scale our presence and penetration in Canada,” Eduardo Falcon, general manager for Topcon’s geopositioning group, said in a separate release.

Brandt’s other acquisition, Inteq Distributors, is a “complementary business” with a distribution centre at Exeter, Ont. providing sales and service on “an extensive selection of construction instruments, optical equipment, survey supplies and accessories.”

The deal with Ultara is expected to close June 26, giving Brandt what it calls a “comprehensive retail footprint to supply premium geopositioning equipment to Canadian construction and forestry contractors, engineering firms and survey companies.”

“We are very excited to add this highly respected team along with these key product lines and support services for our customers in Ontario and Quebec,” Brandt CEO Shaun Semple said in Wednesday’s release.

“The combination of the GeoShack team and Brandt’s national infrastructure is going to be powerful for Ontario customers,” GeoShack president Scott Beathard said in the same release.

“We’ve worked very hard to build strong relationships and a solid operation in the Ontario market over the years and we’re completely confident that Brandt will continue to grow the business and provide unmatched value for clients in that market.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“Beginning in early March we proactively started collaborating with contractors on COVID-19 prevention measures, such as increased cleaning of communal spaces and thermal camera monitoring of everyone entering the site,” said Michelle Finley, the company’s communications and public affairs manager for Canada.

“We have followed the province of Manitoba’s guidelines for social distancing and limited gatherings to no more than 10 people. Where possible, we’ve adjusted tasks to incorporate a minimum of two meters of personal space.”

As of Thursday, she said, there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 among the people at the worksite and construction remains on schedule.

Production at the facility is slated to begin sometime in late 2020, about 18 months later than originally planned.

Construction of the nearly-$500 million plant did not get fully underway until the fall of 2018, more than a year after its groundbreaking ceremony. Roquette said the delay was the result of design upgrades.

The pea-processing plant is expected to be the largest in the world, capable handling of 125,000 tonnes of peas per year and employing up to 120 people.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg. Includes files from Alexis Stockford of the Manitoba Co-operator.

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