Farmers Business Network (FBN) has initiated an aggressive plan to expand into Canada. Launched as a Silicon Valley start-up with backing from venture capital funds in 2015, FBN started as a platform for aggregating data across millions of acres to provide U.S. farmers with information for crop input purchasing and agronomic decisions. Since then, FBN... Read More
Category: Western Canada
In this piece: A brief background on the Cambridge Analytica situation | Personal data - do we know what we're signing up for? | Mental health - how does using social media make us feel? | Will you #deletefacebook? We've known for a while that social media is a complicated beast, especially as it relates... Read More
Camso is giving new life to worn tracks. Earlier this month, the Quebec-based company unveiled its certified remanufactured program, giving farmers the ability to rebuild and reuse worn tracks. “When customers participate in our program, Camso takes their old tracks and puts new tread bars on the carcass, remanufacturing the used tracks and giving them... Read More
Grain markets this week took a bit of a geopolitical hit with a subdued approach to more talk of trade war. Specifically, this week, U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to place tariffs on about $50 billion worth of Chinese imports. But China isn't ready to be pushed around. On Friday, the country announced a... Read More
As a snowstorm bears down on the prairies just in time for spring calving, the cattle markets continue their slide downwards, and futures markets try to figure out how low they have to go to clear additional product in the value chain. That's where we start this week's discussion from Beef Market Update analyst Anne... Read More
The resolution at which farm equipment can treat a field continues to shrink, automatically adjusting rates on-the-fly to account for variability in a field rather than treating an entire field the same. To use an inkjet printer analogy, today's equipment is increasingly capable of "printing" pixels that are only metres or even centimetres in size... Read More
The latest Grocery Trade Report tells the story of more sales to the U.S., Canadians choosing to cook at home, and a (perhaps surprisingly) small shift to online food sales. Kevin Grier, with KG Market Analysis and Consulting, says that 2017 was a pretty strong year for the grocery industry in Canada. Of note, packaged... Read More
Canada's regulator for crop protection products is facing a growing stack of re-evaluations for existing pesticide ingredients. There are several hundred active ingredients due for review by Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) in the next decade. CropLife Canada — the organization that represents manufacturers of some of these products — has several concerns... Read More
The federal Liberals introduced new gun-control legislation in the House of Commons this week, and were quick to dismiss any comparisons to the long-gun registry implemented by the party in the '90s. "It's absolutely not the same thing. There's really no parallel even to make," says Mark Holland, Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Public... Read More
Planting season is just around the corner, but many farmers are still contemplating their planter needs for 2018. Kearney Planters service manager Shaun Dilliott says he gets consistent calls from corn growers who are making planter upgrade decisions or contemplating buying new or used planters. "One of the things we get a lot of is... Read More