Ag News

The number of cattle moving through the auction rings seemed to slow down last week everywhere but Manitoba. 

Over 5800 head of cattle were sold through Manitoba Auction Marts.

Stats show the average price for fed steers ranged from 412.75 per cwt for the 401-500 pound animals to $312.83 per cwt for the 800-900 pound category. Overall, the biggest price change was for the 401-500 pound steers which saw an increase of $60.25 per cwt.

Vietnam has announced that as of August 29th, it will be removing creeping thistle as a pest of concern.

This is a key move, since in 2018, they announced plans to place phytosanitary restrictions on wheat from countries where creeping thistle can be found. 

Creeping thistle, also known as Canada thistle, or field thistle can be found in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

Dean Dias, CEO of Cereals Canada says they are pleased with the move.

Airdrie Rural RCMP has received numerous complaints of large-scale fraud operations from victims right across Canada.

So far, the investigation has revealed that the victims are purchasing farm equipment online for low prices, however, once funds are transferred, the buyer can no longer contact the original seller or the freight team hired for the shipping of the farming equipment.

The Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry is on the road this week visiting locations in Saskatchewan and Alberta as part of its new study on Canadian soil health.

Senator Rob Black says getting on the road and meeting with farmers, ranchers, and researchers is important.

After 28 years Kelly Malmberg is soon going to retire as the Director of Ag Services for Vulcan County.

It's a career he's really enjoyed.

"Vulcan County has been a great place to work. The great thing about Vulcan County is it's a very rural, it's old school agriculture country, really good farmers out there and got really good producers, and ya I've really enjoyed working here, the ratepayers, I've built a really good rapport over the years so I'm really going to miss that," he says.

He says he'll do a little farming and joked about staying active.

RCMP are looking for thieves responsible for stealing cattle in Wheatland County.

On Tuesday night or Wednesday morning this week, six longhorn cattle were taken from a pasture near Highway 564 and Range Road 262.

It's believed the cattle were loaded and taken away using a truck and trailer.

The cattle are a mix of red/black steers and heifers weighing about 600 pounds each.

The cattle do not have any branding but are identifiable with purple management ear tags.

With farmers busy with the harvest there's been a slow start to grain movement in the new crop year.

The assistant vice president of grain for CN Rail David Przednowek says that's not really a surprise, adding that they've seen demand starting to pick up for grain shipment week four which marks the first pop in demand.

The west-central region has made fantastic progress this week with harvest. The region is now 27 per cent complete harvest, ahead of the five-year average of 15 per cent.

Saskatchewan's weekly crop report shows 21 per cent of the provincial crop is in the bin, that's ahead of the five-year average of 14 per cent. 

Farmers in the southwest lead the harvest with 38 per cent of the crop in, the west-central area is at 27 per cent complete, 20 per cent is done in the southeast, 12 per cent in the east-central area, the northeast is at eight per cent while the northwest is at four percent complete.

Dry conditions have been a concern throughout the growing season in many areas of the prairies and that concern continues through the harvest.

Each year during the harvest we hear about combine fires.

Mike Kwasnica is President of the Saskatchewan Association of Fire Chiefs.

He says they worry about the standing crop, especially cereals like wheat as it dries and is ready for harvest, it can pose a big fire risk.