Farm Groups Praise Budget Rollover, Flag Diesel and Labour

Canada's major farm groups, including the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Cattle Association and the Wheat Growers, have now publicly praised Budget 2026, mainly for its up-front equipment write-off and its expanded farm transfer rules. When we broke down the budget Friday, nobody had weighed in yet. They have now, with feeling.

The headliners: the Productivity Mega Deduction lets farmers write off eligible equipment up-front, and new intergenerational rollover rules accommodate farm transfers to nieces and nephews.

The Cattle Association called the rollover a major step for succession planning, then noted, with the quiet dignity of a group that was right, that it recommended exactly this during budget consultations.

CFA first vice-president Jill Verwey said agriculture is getting a higher profile in government policy and praised the rollover and the Temporary Foreign Worker reforms. Fruit and Vegetable Growers and Second Harvest also clapped, the latter for the renewed Local Food Infrastructure Fund.

Every federal budget gets the same farm-lobby treatment: a lovely thank-you card with a complaint form stapled to the back. This one came with the complaint form pre-filled.

CFA: nothing on rising diesel costs, and the temporary farm labour gap is still wide open.

Wheat Growers: the write-off is nice, but competitiveness takes more. They want clearer timelines on input approvals and real measures to stop grain transport disruptions, which is lobby-speak for "please make the trains go."

Succession plans: if your kids are in Calgary but your nephew actually likes calving season, the rollover change is the line item that matters most. Get it in front of your accountant before the transfer, not after.

Machinery: the write-off makes the iron cheaper on paper. It does exactly nothing for what goes in the tank, which is the CFA's whole point. Ottawa handed you the tractor and kept the fuel cap.

Our read (inference, not a group statement): the omissions list, diesel, farm labour, input approvals and rail, is the farm lobby's 2027 agenda, already typed up and waiting.

We covered the extension itself last Thursday: tariff-free access for Canadian peas and canola meal in China, now through the end of 2028. New this weekend is the Saskatchewan scorecard.

Saskatchewan Pulse Growers says Canada has moved $421 million worth of yellow peas to China since the tariffs lifted.

SPG chair Stuart Lawrence, who farms pulses and canola near Rosetown, said the extension gives growers certainty they can plan around.

SARM executive director Laurel Feltin welcomed it too, while pointing out that fertilizer costs and steel for machinery are still chewing into margins. Translation: one fewer thing on fire. Not zero things.

So what: two full cropping plans now have a runway. Peas can stay in the 2027 rotation without betting the farm on a December cliff, which, for once, is assembly with all the parts in the box.

Triticale took 81 years to go from one farmer's failed cross to a Manitoba breeding program, as change management consultant Cameron Ogilvie retells in a Western Producer commentary published Nov. 7.

1873: Scottish ex-civil engineer Alexander Wilson crossed wheat and rye on his farm. The seed was sterile. 1888: German breeder Wilhelm Rimpau got some partially fertile crosses. Then the whole idea sat in the shop for about 50 years, like a seed drill waiting on one backordered part.

The fix came from the least farm-y place imaginable: Italian physician Biagio Pernice, studying dog stomach cells, found colchicine (from autumn crocus) doubles chromosomes. In 1937 Albert Blakeslee and Amos Avery showed it works in plants, and Sweden's Arne Müntzing used it to make a viable wheat-rye hybrid.

1954: Leonard Shebeski at the University of Manitoba launched North America's first commercial triticale breeding program. Norman Borlaug saw the plots in Winnipeg in 1958 and took triticale to CIMMYT in Mexico in 1966.

So what: Ogilvie's lesson is that breakthroughs come from non-specialists and odd corners, and that "how could I make this work?" beats "could this work?" Next time someone at the co-op calls your idea weird, remind them triticale needed a dog doctor.

The Ambroz Blacksmith Shop in Mossbank, north of Assiniboia, is Saskatchewan's only blacksmith shop still in its original building, on its original site, with its original equipment, SwiftCurrentOnline reported in a Nov. 7 history feature.

Built in 1920 by Ontario blacksmith Henry Wiseman, it was bought in 1928 by Frank Ambroz, who trained as a blacksmith in Poland and picked up wagon building, locksmithing and farrier work in the Polish Army.

For almost six decades the shop made tools, hardware and horseshoes and fixed machinery. It became a Provincial Heritage Property in 2003, and it's open for summer touring, July to August, admission by donation.

So what: before right-to-repair was a bill in a legislature, it was a guy with an anvil. No dealer laptop, no software licence, no three-week wait on a sensor. Frank just fixed it.

Canadian Western Agribition runs Nov. 23 to 28 in Regina, and renovations on the REAL District grounds are still underway, 620 CKRM and the Western Producer reported Nov. 8. Some cattle will be housed in covered structures behind the International Trade Centre.

The backstory: Brandt Group has a deal with the City of Regina to buy the Brandt Centre, Commercial Cattle Barn, Stockman's Arena, Canada Centre, Queensbury Centre and Ag-Ex building. The sale was supposed to close Sept. 1. It hasn't. Brandt already owns the former Agribition Building and is turning it into a distillery.

Brandt CEO Shaun Semple said in July he'd spend $8.5 million to finish one covered structure and build another, with more space than the show has now.

Agribition CEO Shaun Kindopp said in late October that staff check the construction daily and the distillery work shouldn't affect the show. There's a backup plan to use Canada Centre if work there isn't done in time.

Schedule changes: the Canadian Bison Association moved its show, sale and convention to Brandon (it says that's unrelated to construction), and the alpaca halter show and fleece judging are off the card.

So what: if you're hauling show stock, confirm your barn and pen before the trailer leaves the yard. The cattle will be on time. Cattle have never once asked for an extension.

Saskatchewan women helped win the Second World War on the farm front, historian Kelsey Loney told 650 CKOM in a Nov. 8 interview ahead of Remembrance Day on Wednesday.

By 1943, about 400,000 men had left farms. Under the Dominion Provincial Farm Labour Service Programme, women were moved to labour-short areas; B.C. and Ontario used it most, drawing workers from the Prairies.

They picked peaches, apples and cherries, planted and harvested crops and worked canneries, on roughly 12-hour days. Loney, author of A Vacation for Victory, got into the topic through her grandmother, who was sent by train to B.C. to pick fruit.

Her point: farm work offered less liberation than factory work, and many women were expected to keep farming after the war with little recognition. Home front work was war work. Worth a thought when the poppy goes on.