Agriculture

On a quiet mid-week afternoon in small-town Saskatchewan, a modest team of five went through the ins and outs of an agri-product business collectively worth upwards of $200 million annually. Ground operations of the headline-making business of Canadian foreign trade — often seen globally through summits and conferences like the G20 international economic forum — unfold in a less dramatic day-to-day enterprise at the Agrocorp facility in Cut Knife, Sask., about 240 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon.

Since he was six years old, Mark McCorriston would drive the grain truck on his family’s farm. As soon as he was old enough to work, McCorriston would help his parents load the truck with grain, drive it back to the yard, unload the truck, and do it all over again during harvest.

Saskatchewan farmers are encouraged to use the crop insurance program, which allows them to divert damaged crops to feed.

Ryan Maurer’s land is part of a drainage network where farmers work together to move water through each other’s land and out into a creek.