Four reasons the averted U.S. rail strike is good news for Canadian agriculture

The U.S. agriculture industry — and economy as a whole — breathed a sigh of relief early Thursday morning when Labour Secretary Marty Walsh tweeted that a tentative agreement had been reached between rail companies and the unions representing railway workers that were threatening to go on strike on Saturday. The Canadian agriculture sector, for which the cloud of a possible rail strike looms much more frequently than in the U.S., should also be celebrating. In the short term, sure, Canada competes with the U.S. in overseas markets. Canadian crops would have been more attractive to foreign buyers if the…