AGCanada

Heavy frost in southern areas of Alberta late last week damaged newly planted canola crops, according to an agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada.

Areas from Vulcan, about 130 km south of Calgary, past the Canada/U.S. border and down to Montana, experienced freezing temperatures for at least eight hours on the night of May 11. Temperatures reached as low as -4 C to a reported -8 C in some areas.

Troy Prosofsky, the Canola Council's agronomy specialist at…
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An AgriRecovery program is likely for Ontario's frostbitten apple and tender fruit growers, according to federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.

Questioned Monday in the House of Commons by NDP agriculture critic Malcolm Allen, Ritz noted an estimated two-thirds of affected fruit growers, whose trees were pushed into early blossom by warm weather ahead of the frost, will be covered by crop insurance.

"We also have AgriRecovery, which will pick up the slack after…
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Drugmaker Pfizer's restructuring of its estrogen extraction plant at Brandon, Man. calls for about 40 per cent fewer employees by the end of next year.

The company processes conjugated estrogen from pregnant mares' urine (PMU) at Brandon to make the hormone replacement therapy Premarin, used to treat menopausal symptoms in women.

Pfizer said Tuesday it plans to cut about 50 of 130 positions at the plant "gradually through to the end of 2013."

The company said…
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The prospect of cheaper feed grain costs is unlikely to lead to hog herd expansion in Western Canada, as tight margins and a moratorium on new hog barns in Manitoba should limit the interest in growing the sector.

Expectations for a large U.S. corn crop have led to ideas that the resulting decline in feed costs would encourage an expansion in the U.S. hog herd, according to some analysts.

However, "we haven't experienced the same sustained level of profitability that our…
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A bid to restructure the finances of an overextended mustard miller in southwestern Saskatchewan has ended with the company permanently shutting its doors.

Tom Halpenny, CEO of Mustard Capital Inc. at Gravelbourg, Sask., announced on the company's website that MCI has "discontinued operations" as of May 4.

MCI announced in early February this year that it had filed a notice of intention to make a proposal to its creditors for restructuring of its debt.

The…
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Canola growers pondering their next steps after heavy frost hit some regions of the Prairies over the weekend will need to wait a few days for some of the answers, the Canola Council of Canada suggests.

Some canola-growing areas of southern Alberta logged temperatures as low as -8 C over the weekend, the council said, leaving growers wondering whether the crop could survive, whether they need to reseed and when or if they should resume weed control.

It may take a few days to…
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With canola futures on the ICE Futures Canada platform undergoing some extreme declines over the past few sessions, there have been worries that cash bids may also follow suit.

However, some analysts are confident the fundamentals remain solid enough that any push lower in the cash market will only be temporary.

One farm source said he sold a good chunk of his new-crop canola on the weekend and was still able to get roughly $12 a bushel for that canola.

The reasoning…
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Quebec meat packer Olymel plans to temporarily relocate staff from a bacon plant that burned down last week to other nearby facilities while it decides on the plant's future.

The company said in a release that it presented its relocation plan, involving five other Olymel plants within a 100-km radius, to its Princeville bacon plant's 180-odd staff and their unions on Monday.

"While some of the facilities were spared by the disaster, the extent of the damage is such that a…
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An international pulse packing and export firm's plans to build and open a major pasta and pulse processing plant in Regina by mid-2012 will now wait until next year at the earliest.

Alliance Grain Traders (AGT) said Thursday that its pasta plant, which attracted Prime Minister Stephen Harper and federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz to its announcement last October, "is now planned to begin in 2013 in order to allow us to monitor developments in the North American grain…
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Markets can and often do change direction on a moment's notice. Cattle prices were at a record high in early March 2012, but quickly turned down and dropped below the uptrending channel, thus ending the rally.

An uptrending channel develops during a period of rising prices and support is determined by a line drawn across the lows of the reactions. Once a trend begins in earnest, it has a very high tendency to persist. When rallies begin to fall short of the upper channel…
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