Hursh Comment

The choice of Greg Marshall as the new head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders is going to have some interesting ramifications for Greg Marshall, the president of APAS, the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan. In this football crazy province, the coach of the Roughriders gets more media attention than almost anyone else. This attention can …

Hopefully, we’ll never have to put this to the test, but here’s an interesting element of the Canadian plan to deal with a foreign animal disease outbreak. Most people don’t realize it, but part of Canada’s livestock traceability system involves the West Hawk Lake Zoning Initiative. Located on the Trans-Canada Highway near the Manitoba-Ontario border, …

Crop Production Week and the Western Canadian Crop Production Show are next week in Saskatoon. One of the overriding themes is going to be crop quality. The Pulse Growers have a session devoted to understanding lentil quality. Lentil grading has been a nightmare. At the Saskatchewan Seed Growers meeting, the presentation by Bruce Carriere of …

The Australian Farm Institute has asked me to write a short article on the pros and cons associated with GM canola. Whether or not to grow GM canola is still a big issue in Australia, whereas in Canada, the genie has been out of the bottle for a long time. In reflecting on Canada’s experience …

Well over a third of the American corn crop is used to make ethanol. Without all this corn consumed for ethanol production, there’s no doubt that grain stocks would be higher and all grain prices would be lower. South of the border, there’s a public relations war being waged over the merits of ethanol. It …

It’s rare to see financial optimism in both the grain and cattle sectors. It would seem like a great time to buy more land or buy more cows, except that when everyone else has the same mindset, it becomes more expensive and therefore more risky. The famous quote by financial tycoon Warren Buffet comes to …

The general manager of the Christian Farmers of Ontario, John Clement, writes a regular commentary. His latest is an interesting piece of how farm policy increasingly needs to pay attention to the “missing middle.” There are a growing number of small producers who have less than $100,000 in annual gross sales. Some of these producers …

Sulfentrazone is now registered for flax, field peas and sunflowers. The new label should be available for the 2011 growing season. The product has been available the past couple of years for use on chickpeas. It’s been registered for various crops in the U.S. for ages. Down there is goes by the name Spartan. Up …

Christmastime is family time, but scratch the surface and many farm family situations are not nearly as happy as they appear. Succession planning can be one of the biggest sources of friction. If you want your kids to remain friends and to have all the cousins know each other, get your succession plan right. For …

  Fertilizer prices have been rising, but glyphosate herbicide has dropped like a rock. The Economics and Competitiveness Division of Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development in partnership with Wild Rose Agricultural Producers conduct a monthly survey on a wide range of farm input costs in that province. Unfortunately, no similar farm input survey information is …

Sandy Russell of Spring Creek Land & Cattle Consulting says bred cow prices were considerably stronger in 2010 and she is predicting even stronger prices in the year ahead. In her weekly newsletter called The Bottom Line, Russell says eventually the North American beef herd will stop its contraction and head the other way. One …

Malting barley supplies in Western Canada are limited due to the bad harvest. Meanwhile, continuous rains in Eastern Australia over the past three weeks have cut the Aussie supply of malting barley. So why is the Pool Return Outlook for malting barley continuing to drop? Shouldn’t the price be rising? In the latest PRO released …