Hursh Comment

Governments should cut taxes. Governments should increase spending in key priorities such as health care and education. Meanwhile, governments shouldn’t run deficits. While the math says these three are incompatible, government budgets are simultaneously criticized on all three counts. It’s easy picking for whatever party is in opposition. Even if a government has a lucky …

What if current grain prices and squeezed margins are the new normal? Certainly, there are well-capitalized operations with a great deal of resilience. However, you have to think there will be operations financially stretched by aggressive expansion. Timing is everything when a new producer starts out or when a farm makes a major expansion. Buying …

With the substantial reduction in grain prices over the past five months, the profitability picture in the crops sector has dimmed considerably. That appears to be having an impact on the farmland market while making AgriStabililty look more appealing. Let’s start with AgriStability, a program which many farmers have dropped. Slightly less than half of …

Many farmers are probably unaware of the legislation regarding the interoperability of equipment, but it’s a rare example of parliamentarians coming together to support a good cause. In simple terms, interoperability refers to the ability of short line equipment manufacturers to have their products work on mainline machines. The issue came to a head with …

Mixed farms, farms with both grain and cattle, don’t get a lot of attention. In fact, you could call them an endangered species. For that reason, it was refreshing to see a presentation called “Bucking the Trend” at the recent Manitoba Ag Days in Brandon. The presenter was Duane Thompson of Tee Two Land & …

Producers who haven’t yet purchased their urea fertilizer will want to do so before the second half of February. That was one of the recommendations from a January 17 session at Manitoba Ag Days in Brandon. The fertilizer market outlook was provided by Noah Bishop, a trader with ADM Fertilizer. ADM is a worldwide player …

At the January 9th annual meeting of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, a resolution on variety use agreements, sometimes referred to as trailing royalties, received a great deal of debate culminating in a very close vote. While all the crop commissions do commendable work, SPG was the first check-off established in the province and the organization has …

Is the carbon tax adding to food costs? Certainly, but not in all the ways purported. When an argument supports your point of view, sometimes you don’t fully scrutinize it. That’s the case with the carbon tax and grocery bills. Make no mistake, the carbon tax is bad policy. It isn’t significantly reducing Canadian carbon …

For those seeking top agriculture-related speakers each January, Saskatoon used to be the leading prairie location. Gradually, that distinction has been lost to events in the neighboring provinces. For years, Saskatoon hosted Crop Production Week with big and small crop commissions holding annual meetings along with speaker programs. The meetings coincided with the Western Canadian …

Conventional wisdom tells us that farm equipment is a depreciating asset. As soon as you buy it, the value starts declining. These days, however, values are in many cases defying gravity. Lots of people follow farm equipment values more closely than I do, but the point was brought home to me recently as a bid …

“Across Canada, farmers are experiencing declining mental health,” says a report just released by the National Farmers Union. The report claims there’s a farmer mental health crisis in this country and all the things the NFU thinks are wrong in agriculture need to be fixed so that farmers no longer have too much stress. The …

With relations between Canada and India at a new low, it’s an uneasy time for lentil exporters. So far, allegations by Canada have led to the expulsion of diplomats by both countries and the suspension of visa services for Canadians wanting to travel to India. Whether the political tension spills over into the trade arena …