Before the first harvest robot drives through the greenhouses, millions of cucumbers will still be manually picked. However, robots are already working in packing and sorting. Beltech is one of the companies focused on the development of a harvest robot, but the company has already delivered a packing robot as well.

With pear supplies waning on the domestic market, importers in North America have turned to the offshore season to maintain supplies for the next few months. While South America gets a lot of the attention, some companies have a consistent supply coming from South Africa. F.P.D. East, based in Montreal, begin their South African pear import season at the end of January and with different varieties, have steady supplies up until the end of August.

Canadian importers are at the tail end of the South African table grape import season. In fact, some importers have already seen the last fruit for the season. The season began back in December with the last grapes being seedless red and black varieties.

March 2019 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provided further evidence that the world will have fairly large maize, soybean, and rice supplies in the 2018/19 season. Meanwhile, wheat production could decline from levels seen in the 2017/18 season.

Canada is forecast to see reduced canola planted area and rising ending stocks in 2019-20 on expectations of continued turbulence in global oilseed trade, according to a May 21 Global Agricultural Information Network report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Robots are taking over farms faster than anyone saw coming, as the first fully autonomous farm equipment is becoming commercially available, meaning machines will be able to completely take over a multitude of tasks.

Demand is strong throughout the world for expansion and new construction of feed mills, according to respondents of a recent World Grain survey of equipment suppliers.

Potential agronomic, health, and human resource advantages drive investment from the Canadian drone industry.

Operators of Eastern Canada’s first DOT Power-Platform are very enthused with its performance so far.

Incredibly strong wind speeds have been recorded periodically across the US Plains and Canada’s Prairies this spring.

As a Canadian who lives in South Africa, I still enjoy visiting the cannabis section of Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation (NSLC) stores when I am back home.

A recent insurgence of heat and dryness into western and south-central Canada’s Prairies has raised concern about spring cereal production.

Agricultural trade between Mexico, the United States, and Canada is an undeniable success story. Under the USMCA framework, these three countries have built one of the most robust and efficient agricultural supply networks in the world. However, a key question arises: Are we doing enough to maximize this potential and lead the global agricultural market?

Europe’s medical cannabis markets are already awash with cheap, plentiful, and often repurposed consumer-focused cannabis from Canada’s largest producers. 

This is certainly a sensible approach: follow the trail of consumer and government boycotts of US products and fill the gap – which will help to compensate for declining exports to the US.
US President Donald Trump’s ham-fisted tariff policies have prompted a range of responses including consumer boycotts of American products.

From Africa to North America, the world’s farmers, innovators and communities are central to the heritage, diversity and technology that shape how we produce, market and consume food.