The project, announced Tuesday, is expected to add an additional canola crushing line and more than double the plant’s annual capacity to over two million tonnes upon completion. Construction is due to begin later this year.

The crush plant, built in 2009, today employs 120 people producing food-grade canola oil and feed meal.

The plant previously underwent expansion in 2013 to boost its crush to about 3,000 tonnes per day. An explosion in a meal storage bin in the fall of 2014 reduced the plant’s output for about three months.

“This investment supports [the company’s] strategic growth plans by reinforcing core merchandizing activities, in this case with additional capacity to originate and process Canadian canola seeds to provide nourishment for people and livestock,” Michael Gelchie, Louis Dreyfus’ CEO, said Tuesday in a release.

“It also positions LDC as a strategic feedstock provider to renewable energy producers and accelerates our contribution to a global energy transition that we are excited to be a part of,” he said.

Jeremy Harrison, the provincial minister for trade and export development, said Tuesday in a separate statement Dreyfus’ expansion stands to bring Saskatchewan “even closer” to goals laid out in its 2030 Growth Plan — among them “the ambitious goal of crushing 75 per cent of the canola produced in the province.”

Dreyfus noted the plant is “strategically located in the country’s most productive agricultural zone, where canola is the dominant crop, and benefits from dual rail and good road infrastructure. The enlarged complex will create further operational synergies and enhance canola seed sourcing capabilities.”

“This project reflects our long-term commitment to North America as a key market for LDC, both in terms of origination and distribution, and is expected to contribute to continued local economic development,” Brian Conn, Louis Dreyfus’ country manager for Canada, said in the same release.

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The privately-held Winnipeg grain firm said Wednesday it has already started work on the new build, which it expects to have ready to receive grain in June next year.

The existing elevator, put up in 1980, was expanded from 12,000 tonnes capacity in 2008-09 to its current maximum handle of 35,000 tonnes.

The new facility, however, will have 25,000 tonnes of grain storage capacity along with a new 150-car loop track served by Canadian National Railway (CN), for “continuous” grain loading and movement.

The company said the new facility “further extends” its national grain asset network, “bringing area producers the chance to leverage global grain marketing opportunities provided by the P+H grain merchandising team.”

The Yorkton site will also continue to have “a team of experts who will leverage a full suite of seed, crop protection, and crop nutrition products and provide area producers with crop input solutions that fit their farm.”

The new elevator will “complement” the existing site’s recently-built 6,000-tonne capacity fertilizer shed and 7,800-square foot heated chemical shed, the company said.

P+H, which also operates in flour and feed milling, in 2019 significantly boosted its grain handling space in the West, buying Louis Dreyfus’ 10 grain elevators to bring its total count of primary grain facilities to 29.

“This build confirms our commitment to investing in facilities and capabilities that support Canadian producers as they strive to grow and market the best crop and further solidifies our commitment to the growers in the Yorkton area,” P+H CEO John Heimbecker said in Wednesday’s release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Judge Shawn Smith of Court of Queen’s Bench in Saskatoon on Friday approved the sale of Morris to a numbered-company arm of Superior Farms Solutions Ltd. (SFSL), the operator of Rite Way Manufacturing. The numbered company will operate as “Morris Equipment.”

The deal will see Morris’ Saskatoon head office, its Minnedosa, Man. manufacturing plant and its patents and related intellectual property go to Rite Way. The deal’s financial terms and dollar amounts are redacted in court documents posted online.

Rite Way and Morris’ court-appointed monitor have agreed to target a closing date of Dec. 31 for the deal.

In its report to the court on Dec. 11, Alvarez and Marsal, the monitor for Morris, described the deal as “the culmination of all of the efforts and resources expended by Morris Group and its stakeholders over the course of the last 12 months.”

If approved and completed, the monitor said, the deal “will preserve the core components of the 90-year-old farm equipment manufacturing enterprise carried on by Morris Group (and its predecessors) continuously from the 1920s until the present date.”

However, in its “exhaustive sale process” to find an investor or buyer for Morris, “no party had expressed to the monitor an intention to purchase, acquire or operate the Yorkton plant,” the monitor said.

The deal as reached means the Yorkton plant will close down when the deal is completed, officially putting the plant’s 20 remaining employees and another 50 laid-off employees out of work.

Without a letter of understanding, as was reached earlier this year between the company and the Yorkton plant’s union, the plant’s collective bargaining agreement would have required any buyer to “take on a degree of labour relations risk for their existing business operations” even if it didn’t buy the Yorkton facility.

The Yorkton plant’s workers, members of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union Local 955, approved the terms of the letter in August in a vote at an open-air meeting at a Yorkton baseball diamond.

The exact contents of the letter were kept confidential in the monitor’s Dec. 11 report. It calls for creation of a fund to manage payments to Yorkton plant employees “whose employment is anticipated to be terminated.”

The importance of the letter of understanding to the deal “on which the survival of this business enterprise is based cannot be overstated,” Alvarez and Marsal wrote in its report.

BMO, which as Morris’ principal secured creditor is owed about $25 million, has said it supports the proposed sale but also now plans to file for an application-for-bankruptcy order against Morris Group, likely to be heard in court next month.

A bankruptcy would see the employment terminated for Morris’ Saskatoon and Minnedosa staff but, as the monitor’s report puts it, “reasonable prospects exist” for those staff to get employment with the new owner.

Operating in creditor protection since January this year, Morris’ businesses include manufacturing air carts, drills, seeders, harrow bars and bale carriers.

Founded in 1929 as Morris Rod-Weeder, the company was owned by the Morris family up until 2007, when it was sold to an ownership group led by then-CEO Casey Davis. Another ownership group, led by Ben Voss replacing Davis as CEO, took majority control in 2017.

Morris has operated a plant at Yorkton since 1949 and at Minnedosa since 1960, and went on to expand both plants several times. A company-owned dealership and service centre at Virden, Man. closed earlier this year.

Rite Way, founded by Regina machine shop owner Les Hulicsko, is today headquartered in Regina but has its main plant at Imperial, Sask., about 130 km north of the city. Hulicsko, who began building rock pickers in 1972, sold the business in 2012.

Apart from rock pickers and rock windrowers, Rite Way’s product lines today include land rollers, heavy harrows, rotary harrows, crimper rollers, bale carts, grapples and high-speed compact discs. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Calgary consultancy Alvarez and Marsal, the court-appointed monitor for Morris, said Tuesday in its latest report to Court of Queen’s Bench in Saskatoon it recommends approval of a sale and vesting order, clearing the way for Morris’ sale to Superior Farms Solutions Ltd. (SFSL), the operator of Rite Way Manufacturing.

The report also recommends Morris’ creditor protection, which has been in place since Jan. 8 with several extensions and otherwise expires Friday, be extended again to Nov. 30.

Alvarez and Marsal said it expects the “transactions contemplated” in the proposed deal to close on or before Nov. 15, and has “continued to work towards satisfying the remaining conditions” of asset purchase agreements (APAs) with SFSL for Morris.

The monitor said it believes it’s appropriate to seek a sale and vesting order now, since it’s working to address those outstanding conditions on or before Friday (Sept. 18). The APAs, it noted, have the approval of BMO, Morris’ largest secured creditor.

The APAs, Alvarez and Marsal said, “represent the highest and best offer received for the assets” of Morris, and a deal with Rite Way “would be more beneficial to (Morris’) creditors than a sale or disposition under a bankruptcy given the offers previously received.”

Remaining conditions for a deal include SFSL reaching an acceptable financing arrangement with its lender — and for Morris to negotiate an “acceptable arrangement” with the union representing employees at its Yorkton, Sask. manufacturing plant.

On the latter, Alvarez and Marsal said a letter of understanding between Morris and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union Local 955 was drafted and submitted to union members. The membership then approved the terms of the letter on Aug. 26 in a vote at an open-air meeting at a Yorkton baseball diamond.

That letter proposes setting up a fund to manage payments to an unspecified number of Yorkton plant employees “whose employment is anticipated to be terminated” once the sale closes.

Further details weren’t available; the monitor has also asked Queen’s Bench to place the letter under confidential seal along with the proposed APAs.

Apart from its plant at Yorkton, Morris also has a plant at Minnedosa, Man. The Saskatoon-based company’s businesses include manufacturing air carts, drills, seeders, harrow bars and bale carriers.

Founded in 1929 as Morris Rod-Weeder, the company was owned by the Morris family up until 2007, when it was sold to an ownership group led by then-CEO Casey Davis. Another ownership group, led by Ben Voss replacing Davis as CEO, took majority control in 2017.

Apart from BMO, Morris’ secured creditors include Avrio, Kubota Canada, Wells Fargo and the financing arm of fabricating equipment maker Trumpf, among others. Unsecured creditors include Western Economic Diversification Canada and various trade vendors.

Rite Way, founded by Regina machine shop owner Les Hulicsko, is today headquartered in Regina but has its main plant at Imperial, Sask., about 130 km north of the city. Hulicsko, who began building rock pickers in 1972, sold the business in 2012.

Apart from rock pickers and rock windrowers, Rite Way’s product lines today include land rollers, heavy harrows, rotary harrows, crimper rollers, bale carts, grapples and high-speed compact discs. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Brandon-based Mazergroup announced Tuesday it has assumed ownership of Yorkton New Holland, Raymore New Holland and Watrous New Holland, effective Sept. 1.

The three operations’ dealer principal, David Marshall, had bought the former Bolt Services New Holland outlet in 1998 at his home town of Raymore, about 110 km north of Regina.

Marshall then took over a New Holland company-owned dealership at Yorkton in 2002, and at Watrous, about 110 km southeast of Saskatoon, in 2008.

The three locations together have about 55 employees, who will bring Mazergroup’s total staff roster to over 370, the company said.

“We look to build upon the relationships that have been created in these locations by continuing to offer great products, great service, and an expanded support network to keep our new customers as productive as possible,” Mazergroup CEO Bob Mazer said in a release.

Marshall, in the same release, said his family thanks all its customers for their support and is “excited to join the Mazergroup family.”

The acquisition brings privately-held Mazergroup’s total locations to 19 — including all the New Holland dealerships in Manitoba plus two Saskatchewan shops at Regina and Moosomin.

The Mazergroup chain expanded from a single Massey Ferguson dealership set up at Brandon in 1959 and now deals in New Holland ag and construction equipment and other product lines including Hyundai, Kobelco, Toro and Brandt. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Smiths Falls, Ont.-based Canopy Growth, whose cannabis brands include Tweed, Tokyo Smoke, Van der Pop and Spectrum Therapeutics, announced Thursday it will shut down its Tweed Grasslands production facility at Yorkton to “further align production in Canada with market conditions.”

The Yorkton site, a 90,000-square-foot former dairy plant, came to Canopy Growth as part of the Ontario company’s takeover of medical marijuana firm rTrees Producers Ltd. in 2017.

Canopy Growth said in 2017 it planned to expand the plant on the 11-acre Yorkton property to over 300,000 square feet and ultimately create between 40 and 50 new permanent jobs.

However, the Yorkton plant’s closure — and other moves announced Thursday — are expected to lead to “a headcount reduction of approximately 85 full-time positions,” the company said in a release.

Among those other moves, Canopy Growth said Thursday it will “cease its farming operations” at Springfield, N.Y., citing ” current market demand for hemp.”

It also said it will cease operations at its cultivation facility in Colombia and will shift to an “asset-light” model to maintain its Latin America production hub in that country, sourcing raw product from local suppliers and continuing formulation and encapsulation work through its previous agreement with Procaps, a pharma processor based in Barranquilla.

Canopy Growth said Thursday it has also now exited its operations in South Africa and Lesotho and is “transferring ownership” of all of its African operations.

Canopy CEO David Klein, in Thursday’s release, said the moves stem from a strategic review carried out “to optimize our cost structure and reduce our cash burn.”

The company announced last month it would close two B.C. greenhouses, at Aldergrove and Delta, cutting about 500 positions, and also scrapped previous plans to open a third greenhouse at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The company on Friday announced the “initiation” of the second phase of the expansion, which overall is expected to cost $100 million and boost the plant’s annual output by 80,000 tonnes of oat products.

The plant, which today includes storage capacity for over 13,000 tonnes of oats, has undergone multiple expansions since Grain Millers bought what was then known as Popowich Milling in 2001.

The latest expansion, when completed, is expected to create about 25 jobs at the plant, which produces conventional, organic and gluten-free oat products such as rolled oats, instant oatmeal and oat bran.

Grain Millers said it expects the new milling capacity to come on line late next year.

“Yorkton is in the heart of oat country and, with the skilled workforce we have here, it is a great location for us to continue growing our milling business,” Terry Tyson, director of grain procurement for Grain Millers Canada, said in a company release.

“Our team is experienced, motivated and ready to build upon a competitive and proven infrastructure.”

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, in the company’s release, noted the expansion is also expected to provide 110 construction and engineering jobs during the build.

The Yorkton oat plant is one of three in the company’s grain division, also including facilities at Eugene, Oregon and St. Ansgar, Iowa. — AGCanada.com Network

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Privately-held, Winnipeg-based Richardson said Wednesday the new upgrades at its Lethbridge plant are expected to boost its peak annual crush to over 700,000 tonnes of canola per year, from its current capacity of 450,000.

Richardson telegraphed these upgrades in the spring of 2013 when it pledged to “more than double” the plant’s capacity — which then ran around 1,200 tonnes per day — but it hadn’t finalized the scope, design or costs for said upgrades at the time.

The $120 million budget announced Wednesday includes new processing equipment installed at the plant last year — part of its 2013 plan to “enhance efficiencies at the facility through upgraded technology and increased automation.”

The budget also covers the construction, now underway, of a “modern” high-throughput canola receiving facility, offering “quick turnaround” for farmers and truckers delivering to the plant, the company said.

The new system is expected to be ready to accept deliveries at harvest in the fall of 2017, with capacity for 800 tonnes of canola per hour, which the company said will be a “significant increase” from the system’s peak intake today.

Those upgrades will be completed with “minimal to no disruptions, to ensure the Lethbridge facility continues to serve both farm customers and end-use buyers,” the company said.

“Increasing the speed of the receiving plant is a top priority for us to better serve our customers,” Darwin Sobkow, the company’s executive vice-president for agribusiness and processing operations, said in a release.

In all, he said, the capital upgrades at Lethbridge will “create a state-of-the-art facility that is very efficient for its size, positioning us to compete with the most modern canola crushing facilities in North America.”

Expanding Lethbridge’s crush to over 2,000 tonnes per day, combined with upgrades brought on line in 2014 at its Yorkton, Sask. crush plant, boost Richardson’s total crush capacity to over 1.7 million tonnes of canola per year, the company said.

The Yorkton plant’s upgrades, worth about $30 million, raised its crushing capacity to about 3,000 tonnes of canola per day.

Richardson in 2012 budgeted $15 million for separate upgrades to the Lethbridge site’s canola packaging operation, expanding it by about 40 per cent.

That work included adding 33,000 square feet of warehouse space and bulk canola oil storage, and new automation for its oil receiving and blending. — AGCanada.com Network

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But how many know that it all starts on somebody’s farm? Too few, sadly.

Two years ago some folks in Yorkton, Sask., did something to bridge this gap by laying out their first pizza farm. It’s a fun place, where schoolchildren have a chance to learn about, and grow the ingredients in their favourite foods.

The idea started with the staff of the Sask­atch­ewan Ministry of Agriculture (SMA) in Yorkton in partnership with Agriculture in the Classroom, Saskatchewan (AITC-SK). And it’s growing.

The Carrot River Valley Watershed Association (CRVWA) teamed up with Farm Link Marketing Solutions at Melfort in 2014 to put a new spin on this concept by organizing a burger and fries ranch.

SMA staff at Moose Jaw came on board that same year with another pizza farm.

This September put a wrap on pizza farms at Yorkton, Saskatoon, and Prince Albert along with the burger and fries ranches at Melfort, Moose Jaw and Outlook.

Food Farm has since become the umbrella term for SMA-affiliated farms, leaving the theme open to the imagination. Tacos anyone?

AITC-SK partners with local SMA ag-awareness champions and other host organizations to help with anything from organizing the schools to programming, helping the teachers and followup classroom presentations. As well, AITC-SK often looks after booking and manning Agrium’s popular Seed Survivor trailer. The interactive displays and games teach about soil, water, and how plants grow, the importance of plants to human survival, and how modern technology helps farmers care for crops to grow food for people around the world.

There’s no requirement to contact SMA or AITC-SK if a Food Farm sounds like something you’d like to bring to your community. All it really takes to get the ball rolling is a host organization that’s willing to take the lead.

“Food Farms are a perfect fit with Sask­atchewan’s Grade 3 and Grade 4 science curriculum,” says AITC-SK programs manager Leah Hermanson. “Grade 3 focuses on plants and soils, and Grade 4 focuses on Saskatchewan agriculture.”

The details vary with the community but generally Grade 3 students plant the menu ingredients, then return in September as Grade 4 students to help with harvesting and preparing the meal. Other activities related to food production and the role of agriculture in the community keep students busy during spring and fall field days.

The host group organizes and manages the site from planting through harvest, sets the agenda, and finds the sponsors and volunteers needed to pull it all together. Food Farm sites have ranged from Monsanto research sites to demonstration farms, grain terminal yards and private land.

“The number of volunteers from producer groups, industry, the schools and the community is phenomenal,” Hermanson says.

Yorkton and Melfort organizers found seed and input suppliers, grain-marketing companies, greenhouses, local businesses, community groups and individuals eager to sponsor the Food Farm once they heard about the concept.

Saskatchewan Agriculture’s Ag Awareness Initiative also provides funding to projects such as locally organized Food Farms that bolster the public perception of agriculture.

Planting pizza at Yorkton

Tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic and herbs form the sauce.

Wheat supplies the flour and canola the oil to form the crust. Some crop wedges are seeded with modern technology and inputs. Others are broadcast by hand. By fall the side-by-side comparison shows pretty clearly the advantage of modern methods.

Two wedges are reserved for a September field trip where they showcase a pig as the source of the ham and pepperoni and a dairy cow that supplies the cheese. Students then harvest the garden and haul the ingredients back to the school where they make their pizzas from scratch.

Many of the students had never been on a farm before, up to 90 per cent in one class, so this provided a unique experience for them.

Burgers and fries at Melfort

Even in this small city of 5,000 located in an area dominated by agriculture there were children who had never been to a farm and farm kids who may not have had an opportunity to see all sides of agriculture, says Carrot River Valley Watershed Association manager Lynne Rozell.

Members of the Beatty 4-H Beef Club set up the live animal display and explained about their animals, their club and the activities 4-H offers kids from all walks of life.

SMA livestock specialist Alicia Sopatyk, who covered the basics of beef production last year, says she got into some very enthusiastic discussions in the half-hour she had with each group. She told them about what cattle eat and how the rumen digests it as well as different types of beef operations and the purpose of the dangle tags and radio frequency identification tags in the ears. There were some unexpected questions, too, about hormones, slaughterhouses and butcher shops, meat packaging and labels, which showed their understanding that farm animals have to be harvested for food.

This year, 4-H club leader Dale Atkinson ended his discussions by weighing a steer and then having students gather on the scale to find out how many of them it took to match the steer.

Syngenta donated staff time and inputs to plant and harvest the plots of wheat, canola and mustard where students learned about the crop cycle, nutrients and weeds. In the fall they came back and found out how wheat is ground into flour for buns, canola is crushed to make cooking oil and mustard ends up in squeeze bottles on the grocer’s shelf.

Volunteers from SaskMilk were on hand to talk about what goes into making butter.

Cervus Farm Equipment placed a large air seeder at the site as a visual contrast to the equipment of days gone by on display at Farm Link’s Glenda Murphy’s acreage.

Gardening activities took on a unique twist the first year when torrents of rain left the plots too muddy to plant, so the organizers improvised by having students seed grocery ingredients in Ag-More-Than-Ever tote bags and volunteers planted the garden when weather permitted. As things turned out these mobile gardens were a hit with parents and the students who were able to watch their gardens grow during the summer break.

In fact, the garden-in-a-bag worked so well they did it again this year, even though the weather was better on planting day. Volunteers from Wright’s Greenhouse and Farm Credit Canada helped students plant their bags and their own potatoes in the main garden where they learned about companion planting and other gardening tips. Volunteers then planted the other fixings: tomatoes, onions, lettuce, peppers and carrots.

In September, the potato station sizzled with activity as students made homemade fries to compare with ready-made fries. Then they learned how the condiments are made, and prepared their own fixings. Prairie North Co-op donated the food for the spring and fall barbecue lunches.

For more information and tips on organizing a Food Farm, contact SMA’s Agriculture Knowledge Centre at 306-694-3727, AITC-SK at 306-933-5204, CRVWA at 306-752-1270 or follow along on Twitter at #burgerandfriesfarm.

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Louis Dreyfus is one of the “ABCD” quartet of companies, alongside Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill, that dominates agricultural commodity trading.

The 164-year-old family-owned firm is in the midst of a corporate shakeup and has been searching since last year for a new chief executive to lead the trading house into a potential share listing or merger deal.

Dreyfus did not comment on the CEO search in its results statement. Its previously-announced plan to hire ex-Viterra CEO Mayo Schmidt for the position fell through in December.

Dreyfus’ net income, group share, reached $648 million last year, up from $640 million in 2013, while net sales rose to $64.7 billion from $63.6 billion, supported by a four per cent increase in shipped volumes to 80 million tonnes, the company said (all figures US$).

The group’s value chain division, comprising integrated activities in oilseeds, grains, juice, fertilizers, livestock feed and stock, posted a 19 per cent rise in its operating result as ample crop supply benefited processing activities, Louis Dreyfus said.

One exception was the juice unit, which suffered from lower consumption and high inventory levels in global juice markets.

ADM and Cargill have also pointed in their most recent financial results to a margin boost from more abundant, cheaper supplies of grain.

Dreyfus’ merchandising division, grouping cotton, sugar, coffee, rice, dairy, metals and finance businesses with more of a trading focus, saw its operating result fall 13 per cent as it faced declining commodity prices and large inventory levels.

The group was also affected by instability last year in Ukraine and Russia, two leading grain producers and exporters, although the impact was limited, it said.

“Good preparation”

In Canada, Dreyfus maintains a Calgary office and operates 10 inland terminals — four in Saskatchewan, three in Alberta, two in Manitoba and one at Dawson Creek, B.C. — plus a major canola crushing plant at Yorkton, Sask.

Dreyfus on Thursday described 2014 as a “very fruitful year” for the Yorkton plant, citing the previous year’s expansions to its capacity, the Prairies’ record canola harvest, and “good preparation for the weather-related transportation problems that arose.”

The plant was forced offline for several weeks, however, after an explosion and fire in its canola meal storage facility in late October.

Dreyfus on Thursday also reported maintaining “good margins” in its 2014 exports from its Prairie elevators, as well as its corn ethanol crushing business and in arbitrage “in circumstances where some local wheat crops were of poor quality.”

Dreyfus’ capital investment last year was $592 million, down from $689 million in 2013, with acting CEO Claude Ehlinger citing a “granular approach — focused primarily on logistics.”

At the Yorkton crush plant, for example, Dreyfus said its “large additional investments in logistics” have allowed the operation to become “fully self-sufficient” in moving its outputs to North American markets.

— Reporting for Reuters by Gus Trompiz in Paris. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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