Ag News

Canada's Outstanding Young Farmer's event welcomes industry representatives, alumni and OYF regional representatives from across the country.

The event gets underway on Thursday with a number of tours covering all aspects of agriculture from crop production to poultry, dairy and natural sciences.

Friday is the "Creating Change Through Policy" conference with presentations from all of the regional OYF representatives, then everything wraps up Saturday with more tours including a stop at Brandt Manufacturing.

The Canadian Cattle Association is coming out in support of Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy and the opening of an  Agriculture and Agri-Food Office in the region. 

Jack Chaffe, co-chair of the CCA's Foreign Trade Committee, says its one of our biggest export markets  for us with Japan our number 2 market, while markets for Canadian beef are growing in Korea and Vietnam.

" In 2021, our exports to Japan was around $438 million an increase of 43 per cent from 2020. A lot of that has increased since the removal of some tariffs since the last CPTPP agreement."

The company is moving Brian Sikes into the role of chief executive officer.

Sikes has worked for the company for 31 years and was responsible for growing the meat protein side of the business.

Last year, he was appointed chief operating officer.

Sikes replaces David MacLennan (January 1st) who becomes executive chair.

The industry feels the move signifies Cargills plans to diversify and grow its business options putting more emphasis on the meat processing sector.

It's another step on the road to amalgamation.

The Saskatchewan Winter Cereals Development Commission and Sask Wheat are once again asking farmers for feedback.

Producers are being asked to review the latest consultation document which provides the background, rationale, and process for the potential amalgamation.

Winter Cereals executive director Carol Ann Patterson says the staff and boards of both organizations over the summer determined what some of the big issues are and tried to address them in this document. 

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's October Outlook suggests total field crop production is estimated to have increased significantly.

Based on the estimates total crop production for principal field crops for 2022-2023 would be around 97.5 thousand tonnes bumping total supply to about 110.1 thousand tonnes.

That would make it the second-highest production level on record and would help rebuild total supply and exports. 

Farm equipment sales in the West Central region have been fairly similar from this year to the last. Daryl Davis with All West Sales said things overall went well and continue to this year. 

“We're doing pretty good actually. There's lots of optimism out there, and we got some inventory to sell. There are certain things that are a little harder to get, but we do have lots of different lines, so some lines have actually got good supply.” 

The Federal Government will open a new Indo-Pacific Agriculture and Agri-Food Office.

The news was part of the wrap up comments following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's participation in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leader's Meeting in Thailand. 

$31.8 million to establish Canada’s first agriculture office in the region to increase and diversify agriculture and agri-food exports to the Indo-Pacific, strengthening trade on both sides of the Pacific.

The two day event focusing on the beef sector runs December 14th and 15th in Swift Current.

Range Management Extension Specialist Trevor Lennox says they'll be focusing on new and relevant research and practices for forage and livestock.

"It's one forum for the scientists at the research station in Swift Current to share some of their research. So we have some livestock and forage scientists at the research station in Swift Current here. We also use it as an opportunity to bring some of the scientists from the University of Saskatchewan out."

The USDA's November World Agricultural Supply Demand Estimates report saw an unexpected change.

Dan Basse with Ag Resource Company says the surprise in the report was an increase in yield for US Corn and Soybeans:

"That extra supply ended up coming through in both end-use stocks and U.S. soybean. End-use stocks were up 10 per cent or 20 million bushels to 220 million bushels. The corn was still relatively tight, it was a little under 1.3 billion bushels."

The fall cattle run is producing some high numbers of animals going through the sales ring and that includes Killarney Auction Mart.

This past week’s sale on Monday saw 1,405 head sold.

Owner Allan Munroe says he’s never seen a fall run like this one. “We’ve had one of our busiest fall runs ever. We started out in September with pretty good numbers and every sale has been sold out right from Thanksgiving on and it will continue that way right into December.”