Recently in Lynette Keyowski Category

Policy decisions in agriculture often beget other changes - be they in behaviour, in technology and/or in the way that things are organized and decisions are made. The Danish sugar industry is a good case in point.

General farm organizations in Saskatchewan have had a colourful, and in some instances coloured, past. They have followed some interesting patterns - often established in the face of poor economic circumstances, their membership structure based loosely on some past organization's structure, and (most importantly) governed by, and only by, producers themselves. Ultimately, the demise of these organizations has also followed similar patterns - dilution of their focus or objectives and declining membership to the point of insolvency.

There has been a tremendous increase in the production of biofuels, particularly ethanol, in recent years. In North America, at least, this increase in production has been policy driven. For a variety of reasons, the U.S. government, and to a lesser extent the Canadian government, have introduced a wide set of measures that have spurred growth in this area. The development of the biofuels industry has had a major impact on crop prices; the higher prices have generally benefited the crop sector while creating financial problems for the pork and poultry sectors in particular.