By Dr. Cami Ryan, University of Saskatchewan Currently on hiatus in Perth and working on a research project with the Institute of Agriculture at University of Western Australia (UWA), I had the opportunity to the attend Crop Updates 2011. Crop Updates 2011 is Western Australia's premier agronomic event and is sponsored by the Department of... Read More
Category: Eastern Canada
With rising commodity prices TV networks like CNBC are very interested in the financial investment plays in agriculture. Whether that is agricultural based stocks or investments in commodity ETF's Wall Street is very interested in what farmers are doing. Mike Haley is a farmer in Ohio involved in livestock and crop production. Mike recently appeared... Read More
Farmers across the globe continue to try and improve wheat production. Higher yields and environmental stewardship continue to evolve and be achieved. One of the best ways to learn new practices and raise your personal knowledge of agronomy is to look at other production practices around the globe. A deeper look into how fellow farmers... Read More
For many farmers conservations agriculture is like old hat. Many of us would never consider going back to recreational tillage. In many areas of the world conservation agriculture is in it's infancy. In fact many Canadian farmers are just beginning to scratch the surface of no-till and other conservation methods. With increased focus on environmental... Read More
With the volatility in the marketplace, producers need to be actively involved in managing risk. There is a multitude of tools available to producers. Some are simple and some are more complex. One of the more useful tools that is maybe a little more challenging for producers to wrap their heads around is options. Using... Read More
In agriculture we constantly talk about the value chain all the time. Do stakeholders all understand the value chain requirements from other stakeholders point of view. In my opinion not usually. I think most understand the value chain from their own perspective and not others. An additional comment would be that if you want to... Read More
Agriculture is always looking for ways to gain better exposure in the public eye. Marketing agriculture to consumers is the challenge of the whole industry with the reality of people getting farther from the farm. There are small steps and small wins all the time but sometimes people have a great idea that has the... Read More
Last week Oprah really spurred controversy with her comments regarding animal agriculture. In case you missed it Oprah was toured through a Cargill facility and she took some shots at the red meat industry. At the NCBA 2011 conference I thought I would get the opinion of a real farmer and rancher on what Oprah... Read More
No matter what industry you are involved in, striving for efficiency is critical for lowering costs. If you can gain efficiency and increase productivity you are really achieving a win win. Precision agriculture provides the opportunity to achieve both improved efficiency and increased productivity with the same application. Most of the early focus was on... Read More
With the volatility that is in the marketplace it is very critical to try have a handle on your risk management strategy. There are many ways to do this in terms of people and products. Traditionally farmers had to communicate through brokers to eben get updated futures prices. With the advent of 3G networks and... Read More