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Superior Farms Equipment to control familiar brands

 In March 2021, Rite Way Manufacturing acquired Morris Equipment. In mid-May of this year, the company announced the launch of a new parent company, Superior Farms Equipment Ltd., which it says will “bring together the rich legacies” of both equipment brands under one umbrella organization.

The company will continue the two independent brand names, but farmers will eventually begin seeing slightly different decals on the sides of implements. The firms say they will begin transitioning their product lines to Rite Way SFE, Morris SFE and ProAG SFE.

“Over time you’re going to see some Superior Farms decals on Morris equipment and on Rite Way equipment,” says Garth Massie, Canadian sales and marketing manager at Morris.

“We’ll kind of ease into it. Of course, there’s brand equity in Morris and Rite Way. The thing for people to get used to is Superior Farms. I think you’ll see Morris and Rite Way in the long term be very prominent. You’ll also see Superior Farms decaling to tie them into this new parent company.

“We are really managed together and always have been, but they’re just kind of formalizing it and making it more public now.”

Added Cameron Johnson, chair and chief executive officer of SFE: “We are thrilled to unveil Superior Farms Equipment and unify the companies to better serve our customers.

“This transition is an exciting step, and the combined companies will continue to be operated by Heather Forbes, who will become the President of SFE after having successfully led Rite Way as its President and CEO since 2012.”

Although the two brand names will remain independent, a lot of integration has already happened within the organization. When Rite Way purchased Morris it did not acquire all of the assets, including the Yorkton production facilities, so air drill manufacturing has moved.

“We’re shifting our parts from Yorkton to Regina,” says Massie.

“That should be complete in a couple of months. Manufacturing for the Quantum drills has moved to Regina, and we’ve moved some of the hay products to Imperial.”

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

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