Higher grain prices among agriculture events in 2007

In 2007, higher grain commodity prices emerged, while long-term developments in irrigation, special crop processing and renewal of the shuttered pork processing plant were among key events in area agriculture.
The pork processing plant has been leased to a Taiwanese group with an option to buy the operation. Tentative re-opening with between 70 and 100 employees is scheduled for February.
All four groups of shareholders and secured creditors voted to lease Moose Jaw Pork Packers for eight years with an option to buy any time within that period.
The plant has been closed since the fall of 2006, when a restructuring of the plant from a 2005 closing failed.

Wheat and durum at higher price levels
With wheat prices in the $8 a bushel range and durum wheat in the $12 a bushel range, returns will almost double in the 2007-08 crop year.
"Personally I will be looking at paying down debt and increasing my equity and replacing machinery that needs replacing," says Ron Waldenberger.
The Marquis farmer believes other Saskatchewan farmers are "in the same boat."
Returns from grains haven't been high enough to replace equipment as it should be. "We've only been replacing what's a necessity, seeders, combines. I've got a few tractors that are pretty old."
He penciled out his durum return at north of $10 a bushel after freight and handling deductions. Last year, he would have received about $4 after deductions.
The spike in prices is kind of nice, says Moose Jaw district farmer Grant Babich.
"It's long overdue," said Babich. "We've been struggling with low grain prices for years now."
Babich says the high prices won't last.
"We're in a global market now. Everything depends on the what the rest of the world does. It seems like every time a commodity price goes up everybody rushes into it."

Irrigation project planned
Farmers and municipal leaders from northwest of Moose Jaw committed to proceed with the mountain of work to develop a $700 million multi-year irrigation project.
The Qu'Appelle South Irrigation district includes 110,000 acres of irrigable land between Bridgeford near Lake Diefenbaker, angling south to the Keeler, Marquis and Tuxford districts, according to a conceptual feasibility study by UMA Engineering of Lethbridge, Alta.
The project will take10 years to get running and another 20 years to reach full capacity, he said.
Four rural municipalities - Maple Bush at Riverhurst, Huron at Tugaske, Eyebrow and Marquis - and the Mid-Sask Regional Economic Development Authority helped pay for the UMA study along with federal and provincial funds.

Pulse processing grows
Simpson Seeds, a family-owned pulse processor, announced a $1 million expansion. The new pulse splitting plant - one of five in Canada - splits red lentils, chickpeas and green lentils.
The Simpson family will concentrate on splitting seeds for increasing red lentil acreage as Canadian farmers rebalance production from mainly green to more red lentils, said president Greg Simpson.
"Red lentils are over half the world production. We were 90/10 green/red. We need to be more like 60/40."
Red lentil production will be about one-third of Canada's production this year, he said,

Orchard expansion
Prairie Berries of Keeler expanded to have the world's largest saskatoon orchard this spring.
The farm, 30 minutes northwest of Moose Jaw, planted 100,000 young trees on 120 acres, said co-owner Sandy Purdy.
The expansion from 10 acres was made possible by an unnamed out-of-province investor.
The expansion involved about $500,000 investment and more jobs "although we will use a lot more mechanization in harvesting."
When fully mature, the new trees will produce about 250,000 pounds of berries annually.

Mustard plant opens
A Gravelbourg dream of a processing industry was realized when phase one of Mustard Capital Inc began production in July.
A 10-year long hunt for a value-added plant in town, with studies on oats, grain and mustard ended with this project.
There was was no room in the industry when the first study was done in 2004, but determined local investors put up $285,000 along with $226,000 from the federal government and funds from other local agencies to pursue a more comprehensive study.
At capacity the current plant will employ 15, and process 5,000 tonnes annually of mustard - about three per cent of Prairie production.

South Country feedlot undergoes construction
Seven years of planning a feedlot and convincing local investors to put their capital on the line resulted in construction work on the Rolling Hills Feedlot near Assiniboia in 2007.
In 2003, the three-year-old feedlot plan was put on hold until the BSE impact had dwindled, then the struggling farm economy took a turn for the worse.
Opening is scheduled for late winter with 8,500 head capacity. Capacity will run around 4,800 head in the first year.
Plans are to expand the custom feedlot to 17,500 head over two phases as the market warrants.

Livestock industry imports
The United States Department of Agriculture final rule on live cattle imports from Canada adopts guidelines established by the World Organization for Animal Health and lifted restrictions on live cattle imports aged over 30 months.
Conditions include include permanent marking of their origin, movement in sealed containers and movement to no more than one feedlot in the U.S.
The USDA rule, allowing imports of Canadian live cattle over the age of 30 months on Nov. 19, lifted a ban imposed when BSE was discovered in a cattle herd in 2003. That ban devastated Canadian cattle markets for three years.
"It's a step in the right direction," said Bill Jameson of JGL Livestock order buyers in Moose Jaw.
"I'm optimistic we will be able to export. but there are still some problems. The problem is the cattle have to have a birth date before March 1999."
Age of each animal has to be verified before imports are accepted.
Except for purebred herds with detailed records, age verification of cattle older than three years "is almost impossible."
Age of cattle can easily be verified from dentition until they get a full set of mature teeth at age three, he said.