By Mahdi Al-Kaisi  The dry, warmer-than-normal growing season this year presents significant challenges for managing soil and crop residue this fall.  Excessively dry soil conditions this season make field preparation and tillage this fall challenging, even though a dry soil condition is preferred for conducting tillage operations. The advantage of having low soil moisture for tillage is a reduced impact … Read More

By: Diego Flammini Ontario pumpkin growers are pleased with how their yields are looking this year. Growers produce pumpkin and squash across 4,248 acres throughout the province, the 2016 Census of Agriculture said. Farms.com connected with some pumpkin producers to discuss the crop and how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed family pumpkin-picking experiences. Paul Brooks usually plants around 25 acres … Read More

By Mark Sulc Fall is a great time to take care of some very important aspects for managing forage hay fields and pastures. Below is a list of things that when done in the fall can help avoid big headaches this winter and next spring or even next summer. One of the most important things to do now is to … Read More

By Diego Flammini A Canadian ag organization has released what it would like to see Governor General Julie Payette mention in Wednesday’s throne speech. Grain Growers of Canada (GGC) published its ‘Speech from the Combine’ on Monday to demonstrate how agriculture can be part of Canada’s recovery from COVID-19, said Jeff Nielsen, the president of GGC. “Agriculture is poised to help … Read More

By: Nancy Russel A survey by the P.E.I. Potato Board found a growing number of potato farmers in the province turning to a wide variety of cover crops to improve their soil and reduce erosion, and even generate some cash along the way. “The main goal of the survey was to get a benchmark for where we’re at on cover crops,” … Read More

Agribusiness giant takes quarter stake in processor By: Dave Bedard One of the world’s biggest grain companies is getting in on a processing facility under construction in Winnipeg to extract plant-based proteins from canola and peas. Winnipeg-based Merit Functional Foods announced Thursday it has received a $30 million “capital investment” from Bunge, giving the U.S. grain firm a “minority interest” … Read More

By Diego Flammini McDonald’s Canada is once again preparing to source all its beef from Canadian farms starting next month. John Betts, president and CEO of McDonald’s Canada and its 1,400 Canadian locations, made the announcement during the Canadian Beef Industry Conference last week. “As of September, we are going back to 100 per cent Canadian beef,” he said during the … Read More

By: Trevor Wilhelm Sporting a fresh haircut from a Leamington barbershop, Premier Doug Ford announced Thursday he is boosting Ontario’s risk management funding by $50 million a year to help farmers get through the economic devastation of COVID-19. Ford, who toured parts of Essex County and Chatham-Kent, said the province is accelerating a campaign promise to top up the Risk … Read More

(Ottawa) August 6th, 2020 – The latest round of fees introduced by large grocery retailers on their suppliers has attracted coverage in the news media over the past week (for examples, see here and here).  This is occurring at a time when farmers and food and beverage processors are already facing a complex web of arbitrary fees and penalties in their relationships with … Read More

By Christine Gelley Farming is truly risky business. Every moment of every day on the farm holds inherent risk. The main duties of the farm manager in any sector are to identify, evaluate, and mitigate risk. All the little steps of risk mitigation add up to make a big difference that we can’t always see, but can still save us … Read More