These aren’t company names that typically come up on coffee row, but a large deal is pending among two giants in off-patent crop protection products. The Makhteshim Agan Group, considered the world leader in branded off-patent products, has a letter of intent to acquire Albaugh Inc., a privately held leading manufacturer of off-patent products operating in the Americas. Makhteshim Agan is headquarted in Israel. Here in Canada, the company is more recognizable by the name MANA, which stands for Makhtreshim Agan of North America. Albaugh Inc. was founded by Dennis Albaugh and is a leading off-patent player in the U.S., Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. This is a big league acquisition involving cash, notes, the acquisition of shares and the assumption of debt that totals well over a billion dollars. If you asked most Canadian farmers to list the top of mind crop protection companies, they’d probably throw out names like BASF, Bayer CropScience, Monsanto, Dow and Syngenta. While not so top of mind, MANA is a large and growing player dealing specifically in off-patent products. I’m Kevin Hursh.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has received notification from Mexico that all imports of Canadian canaryseed will be held and tested for the presence of quarantine weed seeds. Specifically, Mexico is looking for wild buckwheat and they have indicated that the detection of just one wild buckwheat seed will result in rejection of the canaryseed shipment. The CFIA tests every consignment for weed seeds prior to issuing a phytosanitary certificate, but Canada won’t be able to meet the zero tolerance Mexico is now apparently enforcing. There are herbicides that control wild buckwheat in canaryseed, but there are still seeds that show up in the production. Canadian cleaning plants remove weed seeds including wild buckwheat, but the cleaning isn’t perfect. Often there are one or two and even a dozen wild buckwheat seeds showing up in a 100 gram sample. Mexico is an important market for Canadian canaryseed, the vast majority of which is produced in Saskatchewan. Until Mexican officials can be convinced that there zero tolerance is unworkable, it appears that market will be closed. We’ve exported canaryseed to Mexico for many years and it isn’t clear why this is now a problem. This is another example of how a zero tolerance can mess up market access. I’m Kevin Hursh.
Complications from all the wet weather are dominating the inquiries to the Ag Knowledge Centre of the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture. Producers have been asking about nitrogen losses and whether topdressing fertilizer might pay. It’s hard to give a clear cut answer, but cropping specialists are advising producers to scout canola and mustard crops for signs of sulphate deficiency. The symptoms usually appear in patches and include upward cupping of the leaves, yellowing between the veins of the earliest leaves, spindly plants and leaves with reddening or purpling on the underside. The fix is a prompt application of granular ammonium sulphate. More producers than usual are considering the aerial application of herbicides. Because of leaf diseases, producers are asking about mixing in fungicide with their herbicide application. Land rolling of pulses has also been delayed and producers are asking how late they can safely roll without causing yield loss. In some cases, producers are wondering about seeding crops for green feed or late grazing. The Ag Knowledge Centre says that on the forage side, there is growing concern that standing water and high humidity may make it difficult to harvest great-looking hay stands. I’m Kevin Hursh.
The difficult growing season in Western Canada has moved many of the grain markets, but wheat, durum and barley prices remain stubbornly depressed. In the latest Pool Return Outlook from the Canadian Wheat Board, new crop wheat with good protein is up a little bit, but durum and barley are unchanged from last month. The CWB points out that the previous two marketing years saw the largest and second largest global production of wheat on record. The 2010-11 marketing year is virtually certain to be the third largest production of all time. Canada is a huge player on the world durum market, but despite our big drop in durum acres, the overall supply of durum is expected to be adequate for the year ahead. Although world stocks are tightening due to our production drop, global values are constrained by an abundance of durum in Europe, along with the depreciation of the euro. It is also EU stocks that are overhanging the designated barley market. So while canola, lentils, canaryseed, oats and even field peas have strengthened in price in recent weeks, there isn’t much good news in the Pool Return Outlook. I’m Kevin Hursh.
What a waste. The seeded acreage report released yesterday by Statistics Canada has almost no value. More than 7,500 Saskatchewan farmers were surveyed for the report, but the survey took place from May 25 to June 3. At the time, seeding was 67 per cent complete and Stats Can just assumed that farmers would end up seeding what they were planning. Instead, seeding progress stalled at about 75 per cent. The Stats Can report says Saskatchewan farmers seeded a record area of lentils and canola, while also increasing the acreage of crops like canaryseed. In reality, the report tells us nothing. Canaryseed, lentil and canola prices wouldn’t be rising if the trade actually believed that acreages had hit the targets. There’s far too much time between when farmers are surveyed and when the information is released. That’s an ongoing problem with the Stats Can reports. And in this case, Stats Can didn’t anticipate very well. Farmers should have been asked what crops they still had left to seed. With the addition of that information, a much more accurate picture of seeded acreage could now be generated. Instead, all the effort has been wasted. I’m Kevin Hursh.