The French manufacturer’s new 5640s have a redesigned frame that “optimizes” weight and strength, allowing them to perform better in wet field conditions. Hydraulic positive stop depth control is now standard. It allows the operator to adjust the depth of each section independently.

The 5640 cultivators keep Kuhn’s floating hitch design, which lifts the gauge wheels off the ground during road transport, eliminating castor wobble at road speeds. The frame now has a narrower transport width as well.

There is a choice of spring or K-Tine mounts fitted with either edge-on or flat shanks. There are six different configurations of levelling attachments, including a new anti-tangle, five-row spike tooth harrow and a new optional hydraulic reel lift. The company claims these levelling attachments can easily handle both heavy residue and wet conditions.

Kuhn has added two wider working widths at the top end of the 5640 line, 56- and 60-foot models. In all, the 5640 models are available in 20.5- to 60.5-foot working widths.

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Solidarity lanes are rail and road transport connections through EU member states that border Ukraine such as Poland and Hungary while the most significant lane is through Romania.

Wojciechowski said that the EU was looking at several initiatives from member states to come up with a joint plan to cover the additional transport costs.

The Black Sea deal, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July, aimed to help prevent a global food crisis by allowing grain blocked by the war in Ukraine to be safely exported. Russia pulled out last week.

“Trade is not attractive enough…Russia will be a beneficiary of this situation because it will be cheaper to buy grain from Russia than Ukraine that is transported through Poland to the Baltic ports,” Wojciechowski said, without providing a cost estimate.

About 60 per cent of Ukraine’s exports were shipped via solidarity lanes and 40 per cent went via the Black Sea while the U.N. backed grain deal was in operation.

The collapse of the deal is expected to take a particularly heavy toll on countries in Africa that depended on deliveries by sea.

“It is not the first time Russia (has used) food as a weapon… The situation is similar to the beginning of the war,” Wojciechowski told reporters.

“We are ready to export almost everything. This is about four million tonnes per month of oilseeds and grains and we achieved this volume in November last year,” he added.

Expanding grain transit through the EU is sensitive for Poland and some other EU countries bordering Ukraine, where farmers have come under pressure from increased Ukrainian imports.

In May, the EU allowed five countries close to Ukraine – Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – to ban domestic sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize and oilseeds while allowing transit through them for onward export.

The EU will review the ban after several countries pushed for extension beyond the Sept. 15 ban expiry.

“Now Ukraine has built up stocks again, more than before the war, and most likely this will increase pressure on frontline countries and we have to approach this seriously,” the Commissioner added.

EU member Lithuania has asked the European Commission to develop a route for Ukrainian grain through the ports in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The move, proposed by three Lithuanian ministers in a letter seen by Reuters, would create “a viable and trusted alternative route” for exporting Ukrainian produce, including grain, through the ports of Tallinn, Riga, Ventspils, Liepaja and Klaipeda, said the letter, signed by three Lithuanian ministers.

The five ports have a combined grain export capacity of 25 million tonnes, said the letter, dated July 21.

Its asked the European Commission for targeted action to create the route, such as “implementing measures to facilitate cargo handling between different railway gauges”, and moving customs and other controls of the produce from the Polish border to the Baltic ports.

Ukraine and the Baltic States railways are built on Russian-type gauge, which is incompatible with the railway gauge used in Poland, the only practical route between the countries.

–Reporting for Reuters by Julia Payne and Geert De Clercq. Additional reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius.

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Even though most farmers and people in agriculture probably see “fat bikes” and “e-bikes” as urban phenomena, these new versions of bicycles are leaping into the farmyards and farm fields in hundreds of places.

“I have some farm friends who have e-bikes (or) big fat tire bikes that they’re using for going out and checking things and using them around the farm,” said Dave Thiessen, who was manning a booth for the Harvest for Kids charity at Ag in Motion.

Beside him was a bright red fat bike that was getting a lot of attention because one lucky person was going to win it as a draw prize during AiM. Farm families were eagerly filling out entry forms as he chatted with a reporter.

Fat bikes are a robust version of mountain bikes, with wide “fat” tires that allow a rider to cross snow, mud, gravel and other surfaces that are impassable for regular mountain bike tires.

E-bikes come in many forms, but farm-fit ones have fat-ish tires on a tough frame and employ batteries that provide them with dozens of kilometres of power, allowing them to act like off-road motorbikes and gravel road transportation. When combined with human pedal power, their range is good enough for most farm uses.

“Farmers are using them to check crops, using them for checking cows, riding through cows,” said Greg Sparrow, who was selling a range of e-bikes at the AiM tent of Vintage Iron Cycle.

“A lot of our bikes are light. They’re folding. You can throw them onto a sprayer trailer, you can throw them into the back of a truck. If you want to drop a vehicle somewhere and you don’t have two people, you can hop onto your e-bike and rip home pretty quick.”

E-bikes are finding a place in the toolbox of agronomists and crop insurance inspectors — not as a replacement for half-ton trucks, but as a complement. They can be folded, chucked into the truck and then used to get into parts of a field that take a lot of time to walk out to, and which trucks or quads would damage.

A crop insurance inspector told Sparrow at AiM that “his job that was supposed to take three hours took 45 minutes because he could get around the field so fast.”

As he talked with a reporter, a farmer and his daughter came up to chat. Sparrow used to work for John Deere in his area and he was intrigued by the odd-looking bikes on display. That sort of interaction was common for him at the show. When the reporter first approached him, he was talking with a half-dozen boys and young farm men who wanted to know what the bikes could do on-farm.

“I’m seeing my bikes everywhere,” said Sparrow.

— Ed White reports for the Western Producer from Winnipeg.

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In an information update dated May 1, NFACC said its board has now decided “no further action will be taken” by the council to update the 2001 Transport Code.

NFACC, a division of Animal Health Canada, in December 2018 had started work to update the Transport Code — which meant setting up a new multi-species code covering animals from 14 of its separate national on-farm codes of practice.

Since then, however, the Lacombe, Alta.-based organization said, it has had to take into consideration the February 2019 update to federal regulations governing transportation of animals in Canada.

The federal regulations having been “materially and significantly amended,” and “evergreen interpretive guidance” added, made it “difficult to envision the role and purpose of an updated Code,” the council said.

After that came the COVID-19 pandemic, which NFACC said halted all in-person meetings and required its working groups and code development committee to meet exclusively online, which “impeded the relationship-building opportunities and open dialogue that in-person meetings offer.”

On top of that, the Transport Code was the first to be set up using NFACC’s code development process (CDP) but not intended for on-farm use. It included care of animals during transportation as well as when offloaded at certain intermediary sites.

Furthermore, NFACC said, the plan to update the Transport Code had been initiated by the council itself, rather than by any national stakeholder group or other primary stakeholders — “which has led to additional challenges” in following the council’s usual CDP.

And since there’s no one national organization devoted to livestock and poultry transport, there would be no lead body to take up the roles and responsibilities needed to shepherd a new code to its conclusion.

‘Disappointed’

The update process for a new Transport Code was funded by the AgriAssurance program via the former federal-provincial Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) policy framework, and NFACC said development of the new Transport Code was always expected to take as long as that program allowed.

But by August last year, NFACC said, it had “become apparent” that a finalized transportation code wouldn’t be achievable by the time CAP expired at the end of March this year.

NFACC in August called a pause in the code development process, and it said with the remaining time and funding under CAP, it would instead pursue a risk assessment and “collaboration planning exercise.”

That two-phase data collection process ran from last November to February this year, NFACC said. The risk assessment looked at “potential options and the inherent risks” with different courses of action, while the planning exercise looked at the “top priorities” of the council and of project stakeholders in weighing the next steps.

Taken together, NFACC said May 1, a “careful review” of the data “supported the conclusion that the Code update could not proceed.”

“We recognize that many of you are disappointed in this development, and we understand and share in that disappointment,” NFACC said.

“While the destination wasn’t what we envisioned when we started down this road in 2018, nevertheless, there were many positive aspects that emerged from the project,” the council said, noting the new alignment of the transportation sections of 11 on-farm codes of practice with the updated federal Health of Animals Regulations.

The work toward a new Transport Code also provided “opportunity for stakeholders to participate and collaborate” and the top-of-mind survey and report at the outset have “helped NFACC in gaining greater awareness of current evolving concerns of stakeholders and interested parties.”

NFACC said the process also led to “greater sharing of inter-industry information and enhanced communication” and “affirmation of NFACC’s role and the guardrails in place to support CDP work.”

NFACC’s work schedule over the next five years includes updates of its code of practice for beef cattle, code for sheep, and code for hatching eggs, breeders, chickens and turkeys. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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However, as farms grow in size, trucks are getting a lot more use, and lack of reliability can become a pretty big problem, causing expensive field delays. Does the old idea of looking for a bargain, used, high-mileage highway tractor and trailer or tandem truck still make sense? For some it will, of course. But for larger operations it might make a lot more sense to budget for a brand new truck to get the reliability needed for today’s commercial farming operations, in the same way producers consider the need for new, reliable field equipment.

Nathan Yelland, northern truck sales manager at Redhead Equipment in Saskatoon, says a significant percentage of his ag customers are now doing exactly that and opting for new instead of used trucks.

Advantages to buying new

“Traditionally, guys in the ag sector haven’t spent money on new trucks,” he says. “But it’s really the only piece of equipment that works all year round. More and more guys are buying new trucks because they’re tired of their old truck blowing a radiator line when they’re seeding or at harvest. And when you really compare a new highway tractor to a (farm) tractor, they’re pretty inexpensive.”

Expect to pay somewhere just north of $200,000, or a bit more depending on brand, model and features, for a new, reasonably equipped highway tractor.

If a truck can’t deliver seed and fertilizer to the field during seeding or move grain out of the field at harvest, that shuts down field operations just like any other machine breakdown.

“When you get to 25,000 acres, trucks are a major portion of the business,” Yelland notes. “On the farm, a tractor works two seasons, but a highway tractor works all year round. You’re using it for seeding. You’re using it for spraying. You’re using it for harvest. Then you’re using it to haul your grain in the winter and bringing in fertilizer.”

There are other advantages to buying new as well.

Along with new trucks come new features that make it easier for the driver, such as automated manual transmissions, or auto shifts as they’re often referred to. Yelland says most of his farm customers have seen the advantages in that powertrain and few, if any, ever go back to manual transmission models. Large transport fleet operators have moved almost exclusively to automated manuals for improved fuel economy, and many cite reduced maintenance costs due to eliminating driver-related wear and tear due to improper shifting as another benefit.

“Lots of guys really like the manual transmissions because they’re reliable,” Yelland says. “But with Mack, the mDrive has become more of our standard. Almost 90 per cent of our trucks are built with the mDrive automated manual transmission. (In agriculture) if I sold 100 trucks, 95 of them would be the automated manual, the mDrive.” 

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Robinson will replace Jean-Jacques Ruest, who announced his decision to step down from the role in October following investor demands for his exit after CN’s failed bid for Kansas City Southern.

CN will also appoint two new independent directors as a part of a settlement with TCI Fund Management, which has agreed to withdraw a requisition for a special meeting of shareholders that was previously slated for March 22.

Billionaire Chris Hohn’s TCI in September nominated four independent directors to the company’s board. It has been seeking a change since August, saying the board lacked “the right railroad experience and operational expertise.”

Robinson, who takes over the top role from Feb. 28, spent 27 years with Canadian Pacific Railway in various executive roles, before joining North American energy company TC Energy in 2014.

CN said Robinson has made it a personal priority to build proficiency in French, the sole official language of Quebec, which houses the company’s headquarters in Montreal.

The statement comes after a language furor rattled corporate Quebec last year, leaving some companies scrambling to improve the French-speaking skills of their C-suite executives.

CN also announced quarterly results on Tuesday. It reported an adjusted profit of $1.71 per share in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, beating market expectations of $1.53 per share.

— Reporting for Reuters by Rithika Krishna in Bangalore.

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Trudeau’s hand was forced when Innovations Minister Navdeep Bains, 43, unexpectedly announced he was resigning from politics for family reasons. Bains, who has two school-age daughters and had been in the job since November 2015, was a senior minister from Ontario, a Liberal stronghold.

Canadian prime ministers traditionally shuffle their team if a cabinet member says they will not run in the next election.

Francois-Philippe Champagne, 50, will leave the foreign ministry to take over for Bains. Marc Garneau, 71, moved from transport to become Canada’s fourth foreign minister in just over four years.

Garneau’s main tasks will be establishing relations with the incoming Biden administration in the U.S. and handling a major diplomatic dispute with China.

One of Champagne’s first jobs will be to decide whether to allow China’s Huawei Technologies to supply next-generation equipment for 5G networks. Liberal sources say Ottawa will ban Huawei gear but is keeping silent so as not to anger Beijing.

Omar Alghabra, 51, will replace Garneau at transport and Winnipeg MP Jim Carr rejoins cabinet as a special representative for the Prairies, where the Liberals failed to win seats in the last election.

Alghabra, a backbench Liberal MP for Mississauga (2006-08, 2015-present), now takes responsibility for federal transport policy, significant to rail-dependent Prairie grain growers and to exporters moving Canadian commodities overseas.

A mechanical engineer by profession, he has previously served in several parliamentary secretary posts, including international trade diversification and consular affairs.

Carr, 69, had been minister for international trade diversification heading into the October 2019 federal election, but stepped down from cabinet at that time to undergo cancer treatment.

Trudeau said last week there could well be an election this year but stressed he wanted to stay in office to focus on the coronavirus epidemic.

— Reporting for Reuters by Steve Scherer and David Ljunggren in Ottawa. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The federal government is preparing to contain and eradicate African swine fever if it spreads to the United States to avoid the type of devastation seen in China, where the disease has reduced the herd by more than 40 per cent and pushed pork prices to record highs. Since the China outbreak, African swine fever has broken out in 10 countries in Asia.

Containing the virus is important for U.S. farmers and meat processors such as Tyson Foods and WH Group’s Smithfield Foods, because an outbreak would shut the US$7 billion export market for American pork.

USDA would stop the transportation of pigs if the United States detects a case in an effort to stop the disease from spreading, the agency said in a statement. The halt would prevent farmers from delivering pigs to slaughterhouses.

With no vaccine or cure available for African swine fever, experts recommend infected pigs and others housed in the same barn be culled. USDA said the best options for disposing of dead pigs would be to bury them on farms or turn them into compost.

“USDA plans to pay for virus elimination at a uniform, flat rate, based on the size of affected premises,” the agency said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tom Polansek.

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Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp. (MASC), the provincial crop insurance agency, announced Friday that the HDB has been activated and benefit payments to eligible forage producers on about 1,500 claims will begin “shortly.”

The HDB, which was set up in 2014 and kicked in for the first time in 2018, is a feature of the federal-provincial AgriInsurance program. It compensates insured forage producers for increased hay and transport costs in cases of a severe forage shortfall in the province.

According to provincial Agriculture Minister Blaine Pedersen, all producers enrolled in MASC’s select hay insurance and basic hay insurance programs are “automatically” enrolled in the HDB.

At least 20 per cent of producers with select hay or basic hay insurance must harvest less than 50 per cent of their long-term average hay yield to trigger an HDB payment. All insured hay types — alfalfa, alfalfa grass mixtures, grasses, sweet clover and coarse hay — are eligible.

For 2019, producers will receive an additional $40 for each tonne below their select hay or basic hay insurance coverage.

Premiums for the HDB are cost-shared 60-40 by the federal and Manitoba governments under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership at no cost to producers. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives on Friday released a platform promising a number of regulatory changes of interest to grain and livestock producers ahead of the federal election on Oct. 21.

The incumbent Liberal government in February this year announced its amendments to the Health of Animals Regulations on animal transportation. The changes were billed as “improv(ing) the well-being of animals during the entire transportation process, keeping in mind Canada’s geographic size and the time required to travel between locations.”

The Liberals said in February their new “science-based” rules will focus on tightening animals’ intervals without feed, water or rest, whereas current transport rules dating back to 1977 “focus mainly on (animals’) time in confinement.”

However, the Tories said in Friday’s platform, a Conservative government “will postpone their coming into force until we have conducted a review,” so as “to ensure (the new rules) are based on complete evidence.”

While it’s the federal government’s regulatory role to ensure the welfare of animals during transport, the Tories said, “unfortunately, Justin Trudeau is pushing forward with updates to these regulations that are not based on the latest facts.

“Farmers care deeply about the wellbeing of their animals and they want to take reasonable steps to ensure their safety.”

Livestock truckers and other industry groups have also recently been calling on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for clarification on several matters in the new regulations, ahead of their February implementation date.

Refunds

The Tories’ platform also calls for the federal Canada Grain Act and the Canadian Grain Commission to “align with modern agricultural practices, global market requirements, and the needs of our farmers.”

Regulation of agriculture in Canada “has not always kept up with the market,” the party said, pledging to “bring the CGA and CGC in line with today’s standards in consultation with farmers.”

As part of that modernization process for the CGA and CGC, the Tories said “we will return the $130 million in overcharged user fees amassed by the CGC to farmers.”

The party said it will also see to it that the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the Health Canada branch responsible for pesticide regulation, “effectively balances protecting health and the environment with Canada’s economic interests.”

To that end, the party said, “we will add competitiveness as a key component of (PMRA’s) mandate, require that it work more transparently with those it regulates, encourage regulatory innovation and harmonization with international trading partners, and ensure that it has sufficient resources to deliver on its mandate.”

A Conservative government would also set up “global monitoring” of other countries’ non-tariff barriers against Canadian goods, and “aggressively” challenge such barriers at the World Trade Organization.

“Decades ago, the primary barriers to trade were tariffs,” the Tories said. “As these have come down, it is now regulatory and non-tariff barriers that are the biggest problems for Canadian exporters, particularly in the agricultural sector.”

In any future trade deals, the party said, a Conservative government will “insist on chapters dealing with non-tariff trade barriers,” so as to “address these issues and to find new ways for resolving these types of regulatory disputes.”

Among other pledges for farmers and rural residents, the Tories on Friday promised:

• to “work with provinces and farmers to make Agri-Stability more simple, predictable, bankable, and timely;”
• to “examine the rule that makes it easier to transfer a farm to a stranger rather than a family member;”
• to not put supply management on the table in any future international trade negotiations, and to deliver “promised compensation” to affected supply-managed sectors in the wake of market access granted under trade pacts such as CETA, CPTPP and CUSMA;
• to set aside a portion of all broadband spectrum auctions for rural Canada;
• to add aggravating factors to sentences for crimes that target rural residents, “because of their remoteness from police stations;”
• to set aside a specific infrastructure fund for rural and remote communities;
• to use a “mitigation and adaptation lens” when budgeting for infrastructure investments, including designing infrastructure to be resilient to extreme weather events or to protect against known hazards;”
• and to “pursue natural infrastructure projects that leverage the resilience of our natural landscapes” such as wetlands.

— Glacier FarmMedia Network

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