Every couple of years, my dad asks if I’m serious about spending the rest of my life in “the city.” I’m always surprised by the question because I never actually thought I would last in Calgary for 10 years, let alone 20.

Over the past several years, high cereal and canola prices have brought growers a good return on their investment. The prices have been better than what growers could have even imagined a decade ago. As a result, net farm incomes have been higher and growers have enjoyed the benefits.

Lorelle Selinger is the canadian barley supply chain manager for Prairie Malt Limited (PML) and Cargill Malt. A farm girl from Holdfast, SK, she studied agricultural economics at the University of Saskatchewan prior to working in the Biggar and Loreburn elevators for the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. Switching gears in the late 1990s, Selinger moved to Winnipeg, MB, and traded grain for the Canadian Wheat Board. In 2012, she started her current role at PML, commuting between Winnipeg, Biggar, SK and Spiritwood, North Dakota.

In 2012, droughts, storms and other weather events combined to make grain, cereal and pulse production particularly challenging for farmers around the world. There was an upshot, though: those with a crop to sell had a relatively easy time doing so throughout late 2012 and much of 2013. Forward sales were easy to find, basis levels were wonderfully narrow or even, imagine, slightly positive, and profit margins were healthy for most of the major and minor crops. Many farmers were able to pick up the phone to make a sale and deliver it a week later.

When you picture life on farm, what do you see? You might think of hayfields or cattle grazing in a pasture. Perhaps images of combines and tractors with seeding implements come to mind. But what about digital field maps, robots milking cattle or farmers using tablets in the field?

Growing up in the rural community of Walkerton, ON, a lot of Jamie Larsen’s buddies were becoming farmers. And while his friends were thinking about what crops to plant, Larsen was always wondering why they should grow certain crops and how they would do it.

Barley farmers face many obstacles in the course of a growing season, but one threat is ever present: leaf disease.

This is not another article about whether GMOs (genetically modified organisms, otherwise known as “transgenic” crops) are likely to save the world or destroy it. The basis for this article is that using molecular biology is appropriate as another tool that can be used to improve crops.

David Eaton is passionate about environmental farm planning. He was one of the earlier adopters of the Alberta Environmental Farm Plan (EFP), and has maintained his passion and awareness of environmental issues on his farm since completing his plan in 2007.

Already backlogged and bogged down by frigid temperatures and the biggest grain harvest in history, CN Rail has avoided a strike by 3,000 of its workers, averting a full-blown disaster.