Philip Shaw

Today was another day in the harvest of 2018, which meant it was overcast with the threat of rain in the offing. It has been an incredibly challenging harvest here in southwestern Ontario. As November grows older there are lots of soybeans in the field at this end of the province. Corn is standing tall,…

I finished soybeans last week. I might also add a popular mantra in agricultural circles, just “in front of the rain”. Sometimes weather can be our bane of existence as farmers and that certainly has been the case over the past week in Southwest Ontario. Rain and cloudy weather has been a characteristic this fall…

Good weather over the past couple of weeks has helped me almost nail down my soybean harvest as of October 25th. Yields are good in the deep south west of Ontario. There has been substantial acres of wheat planted, albeit a lot later than many of us would’ve wanted. That is just the nature of…

Soybean harvest is in full bore for me now. It’s been a strange harvest season, early rains delayed everything, and then the best harvest days I’ve had have been overcast and cold. I’m due for some late fall 70 degree weather. Those days are always about the most beautiful you can imagine, but have been…

I am getting closer to harvesting soybeans. With another 2 inches of rain last weekend it has been quite a challenge to find dry ground and dry soybeans. It so happens that I farm some lighter sandier ground as well as my heavy clay ground. With the clay taking much longer to dry out, it…

It’s been a pretty tough past few weeks for Canadian agriculture. Of course, by now all of you know that we woke up to on October 1st, the USMCA, which stands for the US, Mexico Canada trade agreement. Some people here in Canada are calling it NAFTA 2.0. The American President is calling it one…

I am into a rain delay in my soybean harvest, which means that I’m in that quintessential age-old part of crop farming, “hurry up and wait”. I’m hoping that the winds blow and the sun shines. We’ve all been here before. I say that at a time when soybeans have gained $.43 a bushel from…

I am ready to combine soybeans or at least it feels that way. In many ways, on my farm there are two times of year when you feel a little bit of anxiety akin to the start of the 100 metre dash or the 1500 metre run. The first is preparing to plant in the…

A week ago I had the pleasure of visiting Noblesville Indiana as guest speaker of the local Hamilton County Farm Bureau. It is a six-hour drive from my farm near Dresden Ontario through some of the best land in the American corn belt. I don’t often get the opportunity to drive through American farm country,…

It has been several years since I’ve been to China. That was in 1993. Keep in mind, I’m cheating a bit because I was in Hong Kong before it was turned over to China by the British. At the time many people were worried in Hong Kong about the impending Chinese takeover. It’s almost laughable…