Imagine selling 30 000 individual cow pies (within thirty minutes of going live). That's what Cards Against Humanity was up to on Black Friday. The boxes, containing pasteurized bull feces branded as the company's best and only deal of the year, were priced at $6.00, and though CAH is known for its love of outlandish... Read More
Category: Eastern Canada
Dr. Stephen Koontz, of Colorado State University, is shining a light on a rather complicated, but incredibly important part of how cattle prices are currently set. Markets and marketing evolves over time, and the cattle industry is no different. Koontz says that the strong transition from a negotiated cash trade, to formula and forward pricing... Read More
Guest post by Janine Lunn I am happy to see that farming is gaining popular interest. It seems that lately agriculture has become sexy, and I’m relieved to see we’re graduating from the old image of men wearing striped coveralls, straw hats and chewing a stem of wheat. Many non-farmers are now keen to meet... Read More
Canada's rules and regulations regarding plant breeder's rights adhere to a convention that's over 35 years old, even though there is a more modern, widely accepted convention that's a mere 23 years old — UPOV '91. Bill C-18, currently in the parliamentary process, will bring Canada in line with UPOV '91, a move that has... Read More
The day when unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are used for spraying fields in North America could be here sooner than we expect. In fact, for small acres, that day may have already arrived. Several spraying units made by a Swift Current-based RotorSpray attracted plenty of attention at Farm Forum in Saskatoon earlier this month. The... Read More
Checking nozzles on the sprayer for uniformity can prove rather tedious, as it often means clambering up and down sprayer steps to turn booms on and off, and running behind the sprayer to take a look, all while attempting to avoid drift. SprayTest Controls Inc. has changed that process, with the remote boom control system.... Read More
What’s the danger of building regulations on a “precautionary principle?” Is the Ontario government’s push to regulate neonicotinoids moving too quickly? That’s part of the discussion that Real Agriculture’s Bernard Tobin had with Paul Wettlaufer and Mark Wales, both of whom are farmers and directors with Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA). In the interview below... Read More
Rumours are building again that Russia may limit their grain exports (specifically wheat) and the government might start increasing the purchasing price from farmers for the government reserve stocks (the government is definitely worried about rising domestic food prices). This would incentivize producers to sell to the government versus grain merchants/exporters. SovEcon said earlier in... Read More
The latest on the Ontario government's plan to regulate neonic seed treatments, the avian influenza outbreak in B.C.'s Fraser Valley, changes at the Canadian Grain Commission and a review of the markets, including the sharp drop in feeder cattle futures, over the past week — here's the TWORA podcast for December 12th:
Animosity and mistrust in the food system — or the "agri-food value chain," as it’s called in some circles — is costing farmers billions of dollars in waste. At a time when the powers-that-be are urging the sector to bolster the economy by pulling together for increased jobs and exports, Oakville-based Value Chain Management International... Read More