Hursh Comment

Rising interest rates may have another impact on farmland prices that most people don’t consider. Obviously, higher borrowing costs will have an impact on the ability of some people to cashflow farmland purchases. This is the same relationship cited for people buying homes. Higher interest rates are widely expected to temper and perhaps even reverse …

Imagine a farm that orders 40 of the largest John Deere combines complete with headers at a cost of $1.3 million each. Pretty big farm, eh? Well, according to people who rent land to this large southern Saskatchewan based farm operation, that’s the combine order for the coming year. Forty combines at 4,000 acres per …

Concerns over worker safety are having a major impact on how crop insurance functions. In 2021, Saskatchewan Crop Insurance was swamped by claims from the widespread and severe drought. Bin measurements to validate claims were mostly dropped. It would take too long to follow the normal procedure of climbing bins and doing all the measurements …

On many farmyards, old pieces of equipment are nowhere to be seen. If there’s any scrap metal, it must be behind the shop out of sight to passers-by. On other farmyards, salvage equipment and scrap metal are everywhere, sometimes well organized and sometimes random. My place is starting to look like the latter description. Some …

Concern over rural crime has been heightened by the recent mass murder and subsequent manhunt in Saskatchewan. In the days the suspect was at large, many more farm families locked their doors at night. Some made sure they had quick access to their firearms. Usually, the threat isn’t so dire, but many areas struggle with …

With so many moving parts strained to capacity while working in heat and dust, it’s amazing combines are as reliable as they are. Still, the list of potential problems and breakdowns is endless. We probably suffer more than most because we’re running two combines that have now seen their 25th birthdays. The hours aren’t extremely …

One day, I tweeted a picture of my brown mustard crop noting that harvest wasn’t far away. Soon after, I received a request from a French television journalist wanting to travel from Paris to my farm. It seems that mustard, specifically Dijon, made from brown mustard is sold out in French supermarkets, creating something akin …

The July meeting of agriculture ministers from across the country resulted in some substantive initiatives that will directly impact farmers. However, as is often the case, the devil is in the details and those are yet to be worked out. At the meeting, held in Saskatoon, it was determined that the next five-year federal, provincial …

Let’s apply a little common sense to macro economic policy. The latest hike to the Bank of Canada rate is a full percentage point with the express purpose of decreasing demand to battle inflation. It’s the largest increase in decades and more increases are expected. While some boost to interest rates is reasonable given how …

The Trudeau Liberals continue to find new ways to alienate rural westerners in general and farmers and ranchers in particular. Farm organizations need to work with governments no matter their political stripe so they tend to be diplomatic in their statements. Not so for the regular farm crowd, a surprising number of whom wear hats, …

As farmers, we are often poorly prepared for one particular risk – lack of labour. This applies to all the folks who do the work, particularly family members. Various methods exist to deal with the price risk on the commodities we sell. Input cost risk is often mitigated on products like fertilizer by buying early. …

The prosperity gap between grain farmers and cow-calf producers has widened considerably over the past year. Gradually, more cattle producers are selling off their cows. Land at all suitable for annual crop production is being taken out of hay and pasture. The price for everything continues to increase – machinery, fertilizer, diesel, fencing supplies and …