Renting rather than purchasing land can be a smart short- and long-term farming strategy. While it makes especially good economic sense for young, cash-strapped farmers starting out, land prices in the $3,500 to $6,000 per acre range make renting a sound strategy for established farmers as well.
The tight farm financial picture that has evolved over the last three crop years has many farmers adjusting capital, operational and agronomic practices. The aim is to push up the profit margin while cutting costs. GrainsWest spoke with three agricultural advisors about such dollar-saving tactics.
The agriculture industry faces pivotal challenges, and a new report from the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) suggests action is needed. Farmer 4.0: How the coming skills revolution can transform agriculture, details the precarious situation Canadian agriculture finds itself in as it faces a labour shortage, shrinking profits and its slice of global export markets diminishes.
With the explosion of craft brewing comes a food waste problem. Spent grain accounts for about 85 per cent of brewing byproduct. Big breweries generate thousands of tonnes daily that is sold or given away as animal feed. Craft breweries, especially those in urban areas, don’t produce enough to make its distribution as feed financially viable. They have little choice, but to dispose of it as compost.
Through the Keep it Clean! program, partner groups communicate a clear and consistent message to farmers about on-farm practices that will help reduce market risk.
Unless one is specifically growing a feed variety of barley, or a class of wheat intended for the livestock or ethanol market, a crop that grades as feed can be an unwelcome surprise.
Held in late July of 2019, the Made in Canada Crop Tour was conducted with the co-operation of four industry groups to help create just such barley buy in.
Every farmer will experience it
at some point. Making a grain
delivery at their local elevator, a sinister sample downgrades the entire load of a crop so dutifully grown.
Expanding the farm isn’t something you do overnight and shouldn’t be done without planning.
Increasing wheat yields in
the Black Sea region of Russia and Ukraine may send chills down the spines of Canadian farmers, but those in the know say changes in global production spell opportunity, not catastrophe, for Canadian wheat farmers.
