Category: Eastern Canada

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

Farmers are great at growing crops and raising livestock but I don't know many that really like to crunch the numbers. I feel that farmers are naturally entrepreneurial and tend to keep the farm financial plan in their head. For many farmers this works but it can result in some surprises from time to time.... Read More

By Due to the fact that my flight was delayed for three hours in the Calgary airport on my way to Denver for the NCBA 2011 annual convention I found the Rocky Mountain Lounge to get in an afternoon of work. Beside my work station was a giant plasma tv that had on the Oprah... Read More

There is a movement afoot in cereal growing world to push farmers to wider row spacing. Some researchers say that this is a great way to prevent a covered canopy which will naturally minimize crop leaf disease while others are more skeptical. One of the skeptics is David Bergen from GEN Manufacturing. GEN engineers openers... Read More

Trying to maximize the yield of wheat, corn, canola and soybeans is obviously a key focus of growers. According to Phil Needham, Needham Ag Technologies uniformity is the key for farmers across North America. The idea of uniformity applies to seeding depth, seeding rates, plant emergence and residue management. According to Phil, uniformity is the... Read More