It’s unsettling to even contemplate the possibility of breakdowns occurring within our agricultural system, but the industry is now actively working to avert disaster on a daily basis.

To remain open for business during the COVID-19 pandemic, seed processing facilities have locked their doors. While they may be shut tight, they remain very much open for business and are adjusting to these pandemic protocols in the busy, sometimes stressful run up to spring seeding.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, farmers are feeling a mix of anxiety and uncertainty just as urban Albertans are. However, there is an emerging confidence that the ag supply chain will hold up.

The farming industry is taking the COVID-19 pandemic seriously. Obviously, there’s a lot riding on the continued good health of the farm community and the uninterrupted production of food.

Low-tech air drying of grain may be a farming practice tailor made for these wet, financially constrained times. Multiple tough harvests have increased grain drying demands on Alberta farmers at a time when average farm income is down substantially. Can natural in-bin airdrying or natural aeration help Prairie farmers cope, and at an attractive price? Employing differing airflow levels, both involve blowing air into grain bins to dry harvested grain.

Familiar to most farmers, that blue seed tag indicates a grower has produced the high-quality product that will be used to produce the year’s crop. Seed growers are the foundation of Canada’s agri-food industry, helping to maintain the robust selection of crop varieties farmers rely on to grow the best crops possible.

Farmers take food trends personally. Why are consumers canoodling with exotic foodstuffs such as camu camu and macadamia milk when Canadian farms literally produce acres of the world’s best food and litres of the best drink? And, after all, it’s food with proven, rather than wishfully presumed, miracle health benefits.

While statistics are limited, some industry insiders estimate about 50 per cent of farmers haul their own grain, while the other 50 per cent rely fully or partly on commercial trucking services, popularly referred to as custom grain haulers.

Weather patterns over the last decade have been reliably unreliable at best. And while insurance does provide some reprieve when fall crops remain in the field until spring, farmers are contemplating management decisions they hope will diminish the risk.

Following a generally cool, sometimes too wet, sometimes too dry growing season, an unhappy portion of Alberta’s 2019 grain crop was snowed under and overwintered in the field.