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 websites of specialty fertilizer companies now often resemble a love letter to the periodic table of elements. Boron, zinc, manganese, oh my! Each shiny product is designed to sell farmers a nutrient they either didn’t know they needed or simply cannot live without.

It’s no secret that Canada is one of the world’s top producers of consistently high-quality wheat. Millers in countries such as Ecuador, Indonesia and Japan rely on Canadian wheat to produce top-quality flour for their customers. And while American millers contend with wheat consistency issues, new marketing opportunities for Canadian wheat have popped up in that country. In a highly competitive market, quality is what sets Canada apart from its competitors.

Blood dripped from Liz Roberts’s hand. She needed help but her cell phone showed no service. She stepped away from the fence stretcher that had gashed her hand. Driving to get medical help, she stopped several times to phone for assistance without success. From her family’s farm south of Cereal, Roberts arrived 30 minutes later in Oyen, a town of 1,000 hardy souls perched just south of Highway 9 in southeast Alberta, relieved to have remained conscious long enough to find a doctor and stitches for her wound.

The world’s food demand is increasing, but its supply of agricultural land is not. The challenge faced by the farming industry is to increase productivity, improve food security and boost farm income on a land base that is fixed, or in some cases, shrinking. One of the best strategies to address all these related demands is to encourage innovative scientific research.

With the Alberta rural crime rate being 42 per cent higher than in urban centres in 2017, farm residents have become more interested in beefing up security. Some are using technology to deter crime on their properties.

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.

Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) have been awarded major funding in support of cutting-edge crop research geared to ultimately improve characteristics such as yield and disease resistance in wheat. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and National Research Council Canada scientists as well as collaborators in Canada and the United States will also work on the project.