After hearing that the world had survived its greatest financial crisis in 70 years and was going to keep buying food, Corning, Sask., farmer Ken Hunter breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s optimistic. Things look better. I hope he’s right,” said Hunter, who was part of a group of farmers from the Weyburn area attending GrainWorld, the Canadian Wheat Board’s annual market outlook conference.
Farmers heard price forecasts for grains and oilseeds, livestock, fertilizer and other commodities for the coming year and weather forecasts for the growing season.
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The wheat board’s forecast of $6.42 per bushel Canada Western red spring wheat with 13.5 percent protein for the 2010-11 year didn’t put a smile on many farmers’ faces, but most had some relief that it wasn’t worse.
After hearing a presentation by Stewart Hall of HSBC bank, in which Hall predicted slow but continued world growth, Starbuck, Man., farmer Chuck Fossay said it sounded better than he feared.
“It’ll probably be much like what we had in the early 1990s, which was flat to slightly declining prices,” said Fossay. “It’s probably not the best news in the world for us, but if there’s a crop disaster somewhere in the world, all of a sudden the economics changes.”
Hall told the conference that the overall economy will feel like Canada is in recession, even though Canada has technically recovered.
“The Canadian economy going forward is going to seem a lot like the 1990s,” said Hall.
There is a “tremendous drag” on the world economy due to the financial implosion that sparked the crisis and growth will be less than in most periods of the past 30 years.
Hall said farmers will be able to tap into the stronger economies in China and India, where demand remains. And in the long-term, both countries will have trouble meeting food demand because of their overuse of water resources, a commodity in which Canada is well supplied.
Newdale, Man., farmer Bruce Dalgarno said he thinks the long-term outlook is bright, even if the next few years may be slack.
“There are a lot of people in Asia and they need food,” said Dalgarno.
“Some of that demand is coming back. It’s not going to be like it has been in the past, but that’s OK. It’s going in the right direction.”
