If you're a farmer who didn't do much forward selling in the last two years, you've likely been very happy with the outcome. If you haven't priced crop for 2013-14 yet, however, it may not end up not having been such a wise plan. Many farmers are harvesting a big crop right now, and, at... Read More
Category: Markets
Prices are firm, feed costs are looking softer and there's plenty of green grass still late in the year. Let's call it a good place to be before the moving and shaking of the fall calf run. As Anne Wasko, of Gateway Livestock, says in this edition of the Beef Market Update, fat cattle prices... Read More
Owen Roberts is currently in Argentina, attending the IFAJ 2013 Congress. The photo above is courtesy Chuck Zimmerman. View the Flickr account here. Any export-intensive country for agriculture needs to be constantly tuned into global developments that influence what happens inside our own borders. Today, the search for those developments takes us to the backroads... Read More
Several analysts and farmers were caught off guard by the significant move to the upside made in soybean, corn and associated markets earlier this week. Corn markets moved higher, yes, but the big boom came in the form of some significant weather risk weighing on the U.S. soybean crop. As you'll hear in the SoundCloud... Read More
Grain Farmers of Ontario, in collaboration with the Ontario Agri Business Association and soybean processors, has announced changes being made to the way soybean drying charges will be calculated under the Agreement for Marketing the Ontario Soybean Crop made under the Farm Products Marketing Act (O. Reg 485/09). According to the new terms, effective September... Read More
About this time last year, the canola crop's respectable acreage base and promising production was being consumed by disease pressure, the bizarre looking aster yellows and then came the Billion Dollar Wind that shook and shattered seeds all over the ground. As we approach swathing and even harvest of the 2013 crop, however, the crop... Read More
If your grain-farming neighbour is wincing at crop prices and that makes you smile, you might be a cattle producer. And so begins a series of events and conditions converging to support solid cattle prices for the near term. As you'll hear in this interview with Anne Wasko, of Gateway Livestock, cattlement are enjoying strong... Read More
The Government of Canada released a statement today regarding formally asking the World Trade Organization to establish a compliance panel on U.S. Country of Origin Labeling. The Honourable Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade, and the Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, today issued the following statement on U.S. Country of Origin Labelling... Read More
In a surprising move, U.S. company Merck Animal Health has suspended sales of the beta-agonist Zilmax, a cattle growth promotant, according to a Reuters report. The decision comes on the heels of Tyson Foods Inc. announcing last week that the company would no longer accept slaughter cattle that had been fed the feed additive. JBS... Read More
If you've been watching U.S. corn and soy acreage estimates closely, Monday's production and acreage downsizing of the soybean crop may not come as a surprise. In fact, many farmers and analysts were scratching their heads at earlier figures given the poor growing conditions and late start both crops had. Still, when the USDA numbers... Read More