Why would you ignore a 50 cent to one dollar premium per bushel for a crop? When it comes at too high a price of inputs, fuss and bother. And when it causes lots of extra headaches and juggling. That’s what a Manitoba soybean grower was telling me about why he’s phasing out of non-genetically […] Read more
Ed White
Stories by Ed White
Another day, another pork beatdown
The worldwide swine flu news keeps getting better, with its mildness and mellowness calming a lot of folks around the world from their previous state of near-panic. But things don’t get any better for the Canadian hog industry, with the weekend revelation of an Alberta pig herd becoming infected from a barn worker who had […] Read more
A random walk of sentiment
So what moves the markets: information or sentiment? Data or mood? There are some who think it’s pretty much 100 percent new information, and some who think it’s 100 percent sentiment. With most analysts probably sitting somewhere along that very wide spectrum. The markets this week are an interesting case study of this basic question. […] Read more
Seeding intentions scrutinized
Farmers are cutting production costs rather than speculating on future prices this spring, analysts say about the results of the Statistics Canada spring seeding intentions survey. Farmers plan to reduce canola acreage – one of the crops with a better price outlook – and boost acreage of two crops with poorer market outlooks: peas and […] Read more
Flu fears create market turmoil
Fears of a worldwide pandemic increased earlier this week as the World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert to Level 4 following reports from Mexico that as many as 149 people had been killed by swine flu. Level 6 is considered a full blown pandemic. Six mild cases had been reported in Canada as of […] Read more
Don’t write off winter wheat too soon
WARREN, Man. – Winter wheat is a lot tougher and more resilient than many farmers think, Manitoba Agriculture experts told farmers. The crop can rebuild itself from a thin spring stand and produce a reasonable yield. “I’ve heard it called the canola of cereals,” John McGregor, a Steinbach production specialist, told dozens of farmers at […] Read more
Good calls
Gotta hand it to John Duvenaud and the Wild Oats markets newsletter: They called the prairies’ apparently reduced canola acreage this spring reasonably correctly. On March 10, when Agriculture Canada and a number of analyst/advisors were predicting level or increased canola acres, a casual survey of the Wild Oats readership brought these two main conclusions: […] Read more
Scapepigging
You’ve got to expect it when the disease itself carries your livestock’s name, but the Swine Flu is already hurting hog producers, and giving critics the excuse to gang-up again on the hurting hog industry. This morning Chicago lean hogs opened limit down and are now floating just a smidgen above that level. The grains […] Read more
Inflate, deflate, reflate, debate
The inflation vs. deflation debate just keeps going on, with no resolution in sight. I was hearing lots about it on Bloomberg TV in the past two days and it’s the debate that just keeps on giving. The recent market crash and economic slump hasn’t made the deflation camp the clear winner, even though there […] Read more
CBOT should modernize contracts, say economists
Economists say that if American futures markets aren’t fixed, their use will diminish and farmers could lose the most honest price discovery mechanism they have. “This is attacking a vital organ of U.S. agriculture and there’s a real danger of the patient going terminal,” University of Illinois economist Scott Irwin said about the Chicago Board […] Read more
