greenhouses Archives

Andrea Borodenko and Antoine Casimir have acquired Quebec’s Production Lareault.(CNW Group/Production Lareault)

Major strawberry plant producer changes hands

New owners get funding to buy Lareault business

By Dave Bedard, GFM Network News December 4, 2023

The Quebec company billed as Canada’s largest producer of strawberry plants has picked up new ownership after nearly 70 years. Production Lareault, based on just over 450 acres at Lavaltrie, Que. — about 40 km northeast of Montreal, in the province’s Lanaudiere region — has been acquired by investors Antoine Casimir and Andrea Borodenko for […] Read more

File photo of a desk in Canada’s Senate. (Dougall_Photography/iStock/Getty Images)

Crops, Machinery

Internal dispute over privilege, bullying allegations ties up C-234

New amendment to farm fuel bill now under debate

By Dave Bedard, GFM Network News November 22, 2023

A proposed amendment, and a dispute over senatorial behaviour, further geared down progress Tuesday of a federal private member’s bill to carve out a carbon tax exemption for grain drying and heating of barns and greenhouses. Bill C-234, which passed the House of Commons in late March, remained on the Senate’s order paper for debate […] Read more

General, Machinery, Weather

Carbon price exemption for farm gas clears Commons

Bill C-234 next headed to Senate

By Dave Bedard, GFM Network News March 30, 2023

Legislative amendments that would exempt farmers’ eligible purchases of natural gas and propane from federal carbon pricing are now en route to Canada’s Senate. Bill C-234, a private member’s bill sponsored by Ben Lobb, the Conservative MP for the southern Ontario riding of Huron-Bruce, passed third reading for adoption in the House of Commons on […] Read more

File photo of steam rising from the top of a grain dryer. (Diane Kuhl/iStock/Getty Images)

General, Machinery, Weather

New farm fuel carbon tax rule to return to Commons

Further carbon pricing exemptions clear ag committee, with sunset clause added

By Dave Bedard, GFM Network News November 18, 2022

A bill that would exempt more farm fuels from Canada’s federal carbon pricing scheme has cleared the Commons’ ag committee and returned to the House of Commons to seek a third and final vote. C-234, a private member’s bill sponsored by southwestern Ontario Conservative MP Ben Lobb, appeared before the Commons’ standing committee on agriculture […] Read more

Interior view of the Aurora Sky cannabis production facility near Edmonton. (Aurora Cannabis video screengrab)

Crops

Aurora buys control of major B.C. hothouse veg firm

Bevo Farms to take over Aurora Sky cannabis production site

By Dave Bedard, GFM Network News September 11, 2022

A major player in B.C.’s greenhouse vegetable sector is about to expand its operations into an Alberta cannabis grow facility — backed by a major investment from the plant’s owner. Aurora Cannabis on Aug. 25 announced a subsidiary is buying a 50.1 per cent stake in Bevo Agtech, the parent of vegetable and ornamental plant […] Read more

A worker pushes a cart of marijuana plants at the Canopy Growth facility at Smiths Falls, Ont. on Jan. 4, 2018. (File photo: Reuters/Chris Wattie)

Crops, Reuters

Canopy Growth to shut two B.C. greenhouses, cut 500 jobs

Niagara greenhouse plans also shelved

By Reuters, GFM Network News March 5, 2020

Reuters — Pot producer Canopy Growth Corp. said on Wednesday it plans to close two of its greenhouses in Aldergrove and Delta, B.C., cutting about 500 positions. The company also said it no longer plans to open a third greenhouse in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. Canopy had said last month it aims to focus on reducing costs, […] Read more

The emerging sector, farm groups say, is posing a new challenge for traditional greenhouse growers. Photo: iStock/Getty Images

Reuters

Canadian greenhouse labor shortages worsened by growing cannabis producers

By GFM Network News July 29, 2019

Ottawa | Reuters – Canada’s labor-strapped greenhouse vegetable and flower growers are ramping up efforts to keep and recruit more workers in the face of pressure from the country’s budding cannabis industry, farm groups say. “Many of the cannabis producers are very cash rich. They’ve got the resources to pay a very good wage,” said […] Read more

Crops, Reuters

EU nations back ban on all outdoor neonic use

By GFM Network News April 27, 2018

Brussels | Reuters — European Union countries backed a proposal on Friday to ban all use outdoors of insecticides known as neonicotinoids that studies have shown can harm bees. The ban, championed by environmental activists, covers the use of three active substances — imidacloprid, developed by Bayer CropScience; clothianidin, developed by Takeda Chemical Industries and […] Read more

Crops

Hothouse produce grower to devote site to marijuana

By Grainews Staff, GFM Network News June 8, 2017

Canada’s only publicly traded greenhouse produce-growing company plans to put up one of its British Columbia greenhouses for a new venture in cannabis production. Vancouver-based Village Farms announced Tuesday it has partnered with Victoria-based medical cannabis producer/processor Emerald Health Therapeutics in a 50/50 joint venture to grow cannabis for medical use and, pending changes to […] Read more

Hogs, Livestock, Reuters

Russian farming firm to test investor appetite

By GFM Network News April 21, 2016

Moscow | Reuters — Russian farming conglomerate Rusagro launched a secondary share offering on Thursday which will test foreign appetite for Russian assets. Share sales by Russian companies have been rare since Western sanctions imposed in 2014 over Ukraine cut access to foreign capital markets and after a sharp drop in global oil prices, the […] Read more

Alberta crop conditions improve: report

U.S. grains: Corn sets contract lows on expectations for big US crop

U.S. livestock: Cattle strength continues

GFM Network News