Insights and Stories of Dave Bedard

Feb. 7, 2015 at 6:05 pm CST

About 95 layer hens on a “non-commercial” farm near Chilliwack are the Fraser Valley’s latest cases of avian influenza, but not of the same strain seen at 12 other farms in December. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Saturday announced a quarantine on the Chilliwack farm after confirming, effective Feb. […]

By Dave Bedard

Jan. 26, 2015 at 4:29 pm CST

Numbers newly crunched by a clutch of Canadian grain shippers paint a picture of a gap that’s wide, and getting wider, between the numbers of rail cars they say they need and what they say they’re getting. The Ag Transport Coalition — which so far includes eight Canadian grain-handling and […]

By Dave Bedard

Jan. 19, 2015 at 5:34 pm CST

Confirming that a deal is as good as a fixed asset, a Prairie grain handler gets to keep using a lower-price rail route from Alberta into Montana, now that a Federal Court ruling has shot down an appeal from the railway taking grain down to the border. Writing on Jan. […]

By Dave Bedard

Dec. 5, 2014 at 8:01 pm CST

The chance of a rescue for Quebec’s Levinoff-Colbex cull cow packing plant has passed, now that the facility’s equipment has been sold off piecemeal at auction. Provincial investment financing agency Investissement Quebec and other creditors still own the Colbex building and land at St-Cyrille-de-Wendover, in the Centre-du-Quebec region. But the plant’s receivers sold […]

By Dave Bedard

Oct. 27, 2014 at 6:41 pm CDT

Ag input buying group Farmers of North America (FNA) says its proposal to buy the grain firm formerly known as the Canadian Wheat Board has been rebuffed. Saskatoon-based FNA said Monday its proposal — which called for CWB’s assets to become part of an farmer-owned grain handling and fertilizer manufacturing […]

By Dave Bedard