Ag News

We are at day 9 of Grain Rush winners and today we celebrate Page Ranches Ltd. They are a grain farm that west of Strathmore, around the Cheadle, Langdon area who grow things like wheat, barley and canola for the most part.

Day 8 of our Grain Rush winners goes to Hendricks Enterprises Ltd and Mike Hendricks and his crew are still in the mix of harvest and said that everything so far has gone very smoothly. 

"The yield was probably a little better than I was anticipating. I was thinking it was going to be ugly, but it wasn't. We are waiting on a bunch of canola; we are day three of Canola and I think that we have about three to four days left."

Today comes with another local farm who has won a harvest dinner at the Legion courtesy of Baldwin BBQ. Today's Farm is Triple K Farms located in Rockyford.

Cale Kathol says how this year has gone way better than he expected "A couple breakdowns and whatnot, but pretty smooth overall. We just have a little bit left to do, just some picking around and all that but for the majority of everything else we are done."

Voters are being encouraged to think about some of the key issues for the ag sector as they prepare to go to the polls next week. 

Matthew Atkinson, president of Manitoba Beef says it's important to think about party policies when it comes to the ag sector and some of the issues for producers.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) says a partnership happening near Brandon serves as inspiration to advance Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. It can also serve as an example for how conservation success can be achieved hand-in-hand with members of the community.

We're starting to see grain movement pick up as harvest activities start wrapping up in a few areas across the prairies. 

CPKC's assistant vice president of marketing and sales for bulk, Elizabeth Hucker says for the first eight weeks of the new crop year this year we've started 
seeing demand increase.

She notes that in the past four weeks, they've seen an 18 per cent increase in volume as more grain moves into the elevators.

"In Week 7, we moved approximately 534,199 metric tonnes to markets in Vancouver, Thunder Bay, and U.S. destinations."

Many producers have wrapped up harvest with 91 per cent of the provincial crop in the bin, ahead of the five and 10-year averages of 73 per cent. Producers around the province are eagerly waiting for rain. 

The southwest and west-central regions completed harvest this week, with 98 and 97 per cent of crops off, respectively. The northwest is 90 per cent complete, followed by the southeast at 89 per cent and northeast at 88 per cent. The east-central region has made significant progress this past week, with 82 per cent of crops off. 

Agriculture in the Classroom Saskatchewan is celebrating the 10th Anniversary of their "Food Farm Event" this year.

Executive Director Sara Shymko says Agriculture in the Classroom plays a really important role in helping students understand where their food comes from. 

Alberta has developed a new management plan to deal with the growing number of feral horses.

The province says it's the first major step towards the animals long-term sustainable management.

Currently, more than 1400 feral horses are located across six equine management zones at Brazeau, Nordegg, Clearwater, Sundre, Ghost River and Elbow.

Some of those zones face significant challenges to their ecosystem and long-term sustainability as a result of the number of feral horses grazing on the landscape.

Another week of good weather has meant farmers are making good progress with the harvest.

Alberta's latest crop report shows 65 percent of the crop in the bin.

Harvest of the spring cereals and pulses at or nearing completion in the South.

The central, north east, north west and peace regions are wrapping up the pulses, as they focus on the spring cereals.

Where the crop is ready the canola harvest is underway, but significant portions of the crop are still drying down in swaths.