Featured – Kevin Hursh

International factors are pushing up the price of nitrogen fertilizer. In the middle of summer, urea fertilizer, 46-0-0 could be purchased in the $650 to $700 a tonne range. The price is now approaching $800 a tonne and if suppliers need to access more nitrogen for farmers, the price looks like it will go even […]

Funding for Saskatchewan Crop Insurance was announced yesterday, but no program enhancements were included. Producers will soon receive information on their coverage levels and premiums for all the various crops. Here’s a look at the commodity prices Crop Insurance will be using and how they compare to last year. Base prices for all the major […]

Both major railways are struggling to move grain in a timely fashion. According to the Ag Transport Coalition, CPKC was the first to see badly lagging performance, but CN has now joined the downward swing. The railways recovered from the brief labour disruption in August and movement was pretty good until November. However, starting in […]

Insecticides with the trade names Matador, Silencer and Labamba are again approved for most uses in the growing season ahead. The active ingredient is lambda-cyhalothrin. Back in 2023, the Pest Management Regulator Agency (PMRA) cancelled all feed uses of lambda on crops. While human consumption of crops treated with lambda was still a registered use, […]

Saskatchewan Agriculture’s 2025 Crop Planning Guide is now available on-line. Printed versions will be available at the Crop Production Show next week in Saskatoon and also at regional offices. Some crops show a profit over and above total costs, but many cropping options do not. The Crop Planning Guide uses two yield assumptions – a […]

Crop prices varied dramatically throughout 2024. The agriculture portion of the Saskatchewan government website has graphs of farm gate grain prices over time. Note that prices vary from one location to another each day and also vary geographically depending upon access to processing facilities. However, the graphs show the relative ups and downs. Canola hit […]

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has dropped its canola price forecast for the current crop year. This has ramifications for what the canola price will be for the crop insurance program. Every month, the Market Analysis Group of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada releases an Outlook for Principal Field Crops. In the December 19 report, a number […]

Statistics Canada has dramatically lowered its canola production estimate for 2024. This latest estimate is based on a November survey of Canadian farmers while previous reports in July and August were based on remote sensing and agroclimate data: There has been a great deal of debate and speculation regarding the final canola production number. Provincial […]

The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture has developed new survey maps for various crop pests including pea leaf weevil, wheat stem sawfly, grasshoppers and cabbage seedpod weevils. The 2024 pea leaf weevil survey show a large reduction in notches per plant as compared to 2023. The most damage was along the eastern edge of Saskatchewan. Wheat […]

Member companies of the Canadian Crop Hail Insurance Association paid out $230 million to Western Canadian grain farmers on nearly 11,000 hail claims this year. The Canadian Crop Hail Association reports a coverage total of $10 billion this year, matching the record liability set in 2023. The season started unusually slow for claims, but picked […]