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Report highlights optimism, resignation in agriculture sector

Belief industry and government can remedy policy, extreme weather, and trade issues varies considerably

A troublesome policy and regulatory environment, extreme weather, and trade barriers are the issues keeping Canadian agriculture professionals awake at night. That’s according to a joint report from the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI) and the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Institute for Food Security on risk in Canada’s agrifood system.

(LOP.parl.ca)

Carbon exemption bill nearing close of Senate deliberations

Farm groups hoped to see Bill C-234 made law in time for harvest

A bill to exempt propane and natural gas from the carbon price when used for grain drying and barn heating was nearing the end of its winding road through the Senate after an Oct. 5 meeting. Thursday morning the Senate’s committee on agriculture and forestry heard final witnesses speak on Bill C-234, which would amend […] Read more


Dittmer: Dodging government interference and processing facts

Dittmer: Dodging government interference and processing facts

Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer

Two bills, one that would insert federal government agencies into the cattle marketing business and one that would create a Special Investigators unit within USDA, have been voted out of committee in the U.S. Senate. Both bills were opposed by National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and many free-market-oriented cattle producers, especially those participating in branded, differentiated […] Read more

Dittmer: Senate hearing elicits critical facts and logic

Dittmer: Senate hearing elicits critical facts and logic

Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer

A Senate hearing on your industry is always dangerous. It’s especially dangerous now for the U.S. cattle industry. Two Senate bills would mandate that each major packing plant procure 50 per cent of its cattle weekly by negotiated cash. The furor in the industry about such a drastic move, the remembered pandemic spectre of empty […] Read more


If Canada sticks to a rules-based playbook on trade mean it won’t get any cake at all?

Comment: Having our cake and eating it, too

The saying about wanting to have your cake and eat it too has always annoyed me. Why would I have a piece of cake if not to eat it? And in order to eat the cake, I must first have it. But shake up the sentence structure, and the saying suddenly makes sense (at least […] Read more



farmer with bales in a field

The future of agricultural food production in Canada

It's food that weaves the economic prosperity of a nation

With the Canadian economy in complete disarray and a desperately low national GDP, governments are struggling to spur a little action. As the election looms and promises are made, even the retraction of interest rates seems an unlikely motivator. Agriculture has long been lost in the discussion of booming economies. Big oil and big metals[...]
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