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New Mexico-born farm kid on his way to Rio for Canada

Shawn Barber hopes to bring home gold

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

On Saturday, August 13, Shawn Barber will start his quest for gold at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Jeneiro when he competes in the pole vault.

Barber won gold at the 2015 World Championships and Pan American Games. His love for jumping over things began as a child.

 

“I ran around with a pole getting into trouble and trying to jump over things,” Barber told The Globe and Mail in July. “I did pretty much whatever you would expect a kid with an imagination to do.”

Starting around the age of five, Barber, who was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, but now calls Toronto home, would vault over a creek on his family’s farm.

When the creek became too easy, his father, George, a fellow vaulter, built a barn with a pole vault pit and other gymnastics equipment inside.

Shawn said having the equipment on the farm is one of the reasons for his success.

“Looking back, it was probably the thing that made me such a great athlete today,” he told CBC. The exposure to gymnastics at such a young age and the ability to go out every day and have all that equipment in my backyard.”


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Funds Ditch Ag Commodities, Chase Stocks Amid an End to Middle East War, & Trade Deal Buzz

Video: Funds Ditch Ag Commodities, Chase Stocks Amid an End to Middle East War, & Trade Deal Buzz


The 12-day war between Iran-Israel came to an end sending crude oil futures plunging as the big fund speculators removed the war risk premium.

The weather risk premium in the Ag complex is sending corn, wheat and soybean futures lower on month-end selling ahead of the market moving USDA quarterly grain stocks and acreage reports on June 30th.

Instead, funds were chasing and sending tech stocks higher with the S&P 500/NASDAQ indexes setting new all-time record highs!

June 1 USDA Hogs and pigs report was slightly bearish while the U.S. $ Index traded to new contract lows as the de-dollarization that began in 2014 continues.

Feed in the form of soybean meal futures for livestock producers got cheaper, trading to new contract lows.

The Stats Canada seeded acreage update was bullish canola and wheat.