Hursh Comment

It wasn’t the usual way for Saskatchewan Crop Insurance to announce its offering for the upcoming year. When it isn’t particularly good news, governments would rather not attract more attention than necessary. It’s become the norm in the last half of February for Saskatchewan’s Minister of Agriculture to be joined by SCIC officials to announce …

Imagine squeezing a ripe tomato in the palm of your hand. Some juice squirts out. More juice runs down your arm with the tomato looking very different from when you started. This is being written just ahead of incoming President Trump’s inauguration and threatened tariffs, but if he follows through on his threats, business will …

Manitoba Agriculture has released its 2025 cost of production analysis for crops and Saskatchewan Agriculture has released its 2025 Crop Planning Guide. Both show limited profit potential in the year ahead. Both documents are available on-line. In the Manitoba analysis, all 16 crops show a return over operating costs, but only pinto beans show a …

Back in early October, I penned a column about a grain broker in a financial squeeze leaving an undetermined number of producers unpaid for grain deliveries made many months prior. At the time, I didn’t name the broker as being Agfinity because the owner, Joseph Billett seemed sincere in his efforts to work his way …

A grain broker operating in Western Canada has hit a financial squeeze and as a result a number of producers are unpaid for grain deliveries made many months ago. The number of unpaid producers and the amounts owing are not public, but the situation raises a number of questions. When I heard about the issue, …

Each year, every farm has successes and failures and grain prices always fluctuate, but the good times appear to be waning. We each play the hand we’re dealt and spend most of our time looking forward rather than back, but in most cases, profitability has eroded quite dramatically over the past several years. Perhaps some …

Another grain buyer has left farmers unpaid for grain deliveries. And yet again, some producers will be outside of the timelines required for compensation under the Canadian Grain Commission’s licencing and bonding program. This time it’s Purely Canada Foods with its facilities in Avonlea, Kindersley and Lajord, Saskatchewan. Those in the grain trade are not …

Farmers now have another reason to bash the Trudeau Liberals – the increase in the capital gains tax inclusion rate. Unfortunately, many of the arguments against the tax don’t withstand scrutiny. Certainly, taxes of all kinds are too high in Canada. In the case of the federal government, the public employee contingent has ballooned, expanding …

Sometime in the mid to late 80s when drought, soil erosion and terrible grain farm economics were plaguing the sector, I recall a Save our Soils meeting in my hometown. A portable sign was employed to advertise the meeting, but someone rearranged the letters to spell “Save our Souls.” That actually captured the sentiment at …

According to longtime farmland realtor Tim Hammond, retired farmers are becoming more likely to sell some or all of their land rather than renting it out. This shift in attitudes could have an impact on the farmland market in the years to come. About one-third of Saskatchewan farmland is leased and while the land owned …

Here are some of this year’s seeding season frustrations. Perhaps you’ll relate to one or more. It’s been a few years since we’ve had significant rain delays during seeding and one of the frustrations is seed inoculant for pulse crops. We’ve long used peat inoculant applied to the seed as it goes into the seed …

Adam Bercu, founder and CEO of a company called Guardian Agriculture has altered my opinion on the future of spray drones. I recently met Bercu at a venture capital summit in Silicon Valley, not far from San Francisco. He was a sponsor of the event and had one of his drones on display for everyone …