The other day after giving a presentation at a market outlook conference in Vermilion, Alberta I was wondering if my approach of looking at market history and long term market price patterns resonated with farmers. It’s always hard to tell what a crowd is thinking about what you’re saying, and I realize my approach to […] Read more
Ed White
Stories by Ed White
Standoffs, staredowns and contrarian bets
I talked to a producer yesterday who has assess the markets and reports of grower intentions and plans to plant more acres of peas and barley on his farm this spring. He hasn’t grown peas for more than a decade. This may sound crazy, because at dozens of market outlook meetings this winter and in […] Read more
Hog producer agencies join forces
Manitoba and Saskatchewan hog producers are confronting the Prairies’ giant hog packers with their own superagency. SPI Marketing and Manitoba Pork Marketing Co-operative are amalgamating their marketing programs into one, called h@ms. Eventually SPI and MPMC could fade away entirely. To SPI manager Don Hrapchak, the Manitoba-Saskatchewan merger is natural. “It’s just common sense,” he […] Read more
PRO reduces prospects for 2009
Everyone knows grain markets look a lot worse now than they did last year at this time. But that didn’t stop farmers and analysts from turning glum when the Canadian Wheat Board announced its first 2009-10 Pool Return Outlook Feb. 23. The new-crop PROs are down by a quarter to a third from the first […] Read more
Hedging inexperience led to U.S. ethanol trouble
More than a dozen U.S. ethanol plants are idle, with almost two billion gallons of production capacity producing nothing. Ethanol giant VeraSun Energy Corp. has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans to soon sell seven of its plants to raise cash so that it can stay alive. But no one should write off the ethanol […] Read more
Pork processor closes six U.S. plants
Smithfield Foods, the hog slaughter and processing giant, is shutting six plants in the United States. That will have zero influence on hog prices, according to analyst Rich Nelson of Allendale Inc. in Illinois. “This will have no impact whatsoever on any pricing level. It will have no impact on packer willingness to buy hogs,” […] Read more
PROs, forecasts, dismal scientists
No one expected the 2009-10 PROs to be above last year’s PRO at this time (almost $11 per bushel for high quality wheat), or even as good as the present 08-09 PROs, but the reality of the $7.87 per bushel PRO for 1CWRS 13.5 put a bit of a pall over this world’s GrainWorld conference […] Read more
Welcome to the bottom of the last slump
If stock markets slump again today – which pre-market futures suggest they will – the equity markets will have returned to a level they have not been at since the bottom of the dotcom slump and will have broken through a key support level that has been giving non-bears hope. The Dow Jones Industrial Average […] Read more
Be wary of U.S. rush to soybeans
Analysts and the market expect U.S. farmers to moderately increase soybean plantings and slightly decrease corn. But no one should assume American farmers are going to be moderate when seeding rigs hit the fields, said analyst Mike Krueger of Fargo, North Dakota. U.S. producers have shown they are willing to make huge shifts at the […] Read more
Basis narrows to zero
Current canola basis levels should have farmers smiling. Exports are so brisk and movement so steady that there have been reports of basis levels of almost zero in Alberta, $10 under in northeastern Saskatchewan and $7 under in south-central Saskatchewan. It’s a significant improvement from last fall when the basis level was wider than $70 […] Read more
