SaskWheat to host "Grade School" for farmers

Nov 18, 2025

Farmers in the Outlook and Unity areas have an opportunity next week to learn the basics of grain grading.

The Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission (SaskWheat) is hosting Grade School from Unity's Community Centre on Tuesday, November 18 and from the Jim Kook Recreation Complex in Outlook on Wednesday, November 19. Both start at 8 a.m.

According to information on the SaskWheat website, representatives from the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) will be there to "explain different grading factors to producers. In addition, they will be showing producers how to collect a representative sample of grain and the benefits of utilizing programs such as the Harvest Sample Program* and Final Quality Determination. "

Communications and Events Coordinator Montana Getty-Hilash says people need to register in order to participate and spots are limited to 50 people per location.

"We don't want it to be too many people where the CGC representatives can't have one-on-one conversations with them," said Getty-Hilash. "Between 30 and 50 people is the perfect amount of attendance for these events."

One of the featured speakers is Susanne Leclerc, owner of Market Master, an Alberta-based grain brokerage firm. She will talk about grain contracts.

"(It's) a massive topic that we hear about feedback with this event is that lots of people need to learn more about grain contracts, how they work, what the in's and out's are, and what producers need to know." said Getty-Hilash.

She said Grade School will be more hands-on compared to other events, which focus on observing, but it has gained plenty of positive feedback

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators