Until his 2025 retirement from official duties after 13 years, Fawcett area farmer Gordon McCann oversaw shinny games and hockey practices and maintained the ice at the Fawcett Community Hall and Arena. Its schedule now includes men’s and children’s leagues, and its two curling sheets are central to the community’s annual cabaret and bonspiel to be held this year in late January. Nicknamed Iceman McCann by young skaters, he continues to take on occasional volunteer arena activities and will field a team in the bonspiel.

On Tim van der Hoek’s irrigated acres near Vauxhall, potatoes, seed canola and sugar beets are central to the bottom line, but CWRS and durum also play a key role. In fact, cereals reliably hold his high-value rotation together. Of his more than 3,000 acres, much is rented, all is irrigated. Potatoes and sugar beets are grown once every five years while cereals or corn fill out the balance. The cereal years can be the thinnest on the balance sheet, but they are essential to the good health of his operation.

Established in 1948, the Brewing and Malting Barley Research Institute (BMBRI) has endured and largely maintained its initial mandate to improve Canadian malting barley top to bottom. This is achieved as the organization secures research grants, conducts quality evaluation of malting barley and disseminates information on the crop.

The relative value of gold to other commodities, including wheat, is at an all-time high. For example, one ounce of gold was worth almost 72 barrels of oil at the end of November 2025, up from 7.4 barrels in the same month of 2020. Over the same period, an ounce of gold went from being worth about 100 bushels of wheat to 750. What does this inverse relationship indicate?

Canada’s grain sector runs on global demand. Farmers seed, harvest, store and market their crops into a world shaped by forces beyond the farm. Markets move quickly, buyers adjust accordingly and price signals shift with little warning. Despite this, Canada continues to operate without one of the essential tool of timely export sales reporting.

On the Olds College Smart Farm, data is rolling in from an ongoing research project that utilizes the Raven Augmenta Field Analyzer. This camera vision machine learning technology senses crop conditions using digital imagery to adjust input application during field operations. Unlike current methods that rely on pre-determined maps, the camera uses an algorithm to make instantaneous decisions about the rate of inputs to apply on crops.

The cost and complication of herbicide resistance is reshaping the way Prairie farmers manage their acres. It’s a frustrating problem that demands adaptation, typically in the form of integrated weed management (IWM), a customized, field-by-field strategy. One size does not fit all as farmers and agronomists tackle herbicide resistance with a multi-strategy approach.

Developed and delivered in collaboration with Farm Credit Canada and RBC, the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) at the University of Guelph offers Foundations in Agricultural Management. The free online course is aimed at Canadian farmers, their families and ag industry professionals who wish to improve their business acumen, financial literacy and management skills. The non-credit, video seminar course is comprised of eight modules that take an average of 15 to 20 minutes each to work through. Compatible with busy farm lifestyles, to earn a certificate of completion, participants can finish the course at their own pace.

Outdated. Reactive. Costly. This is how certain critics describe business risk management programs available to Canadian farmers.

The first in a series of family farm portraits, GrainsWest visited Angela and Robert Semeniuk, whose land is in the Smoky Lake area. Their children, daughter Gabrielle and son Tristan, are the fifth generation to be raised at this 115-year-old farm.