Everyone’s been waiting for the bottom to be reached and left behind in the ag commodity markets. For a few days there’s been a nice little rally in the main crop futures markets, and even though today isn’t a great day, the hopes for a rally that eventually makes the early December lows the year’s […] Read more
Ed White
Stories by Ed White
Canada’s eventual prairie spring advantage
There’s good news for prairie farmers from the head of the North American Millers Association: The association is terrified that the U.S. is going to lose its prairie spring acreage to corn. That’s bad for U.S. millers, who use spring wheat to make bread. But that’s probably good for Canadian prairie farmers, who wouldn’t mind […] Read more
Bio-burp
The mania over biofuels helped drive grain and oilseed prices up, up and further up earlier this year. That makes sense for two reasons: 1) Most biofuels are made from cereal grains (ethanol) or oilseeds (biodiesel); 2) High oil prices sucked up any substitute that could be used to replace them, and biofuels rushed to […] Read more
Bottom fishing
Could we finally have bounced off the bottom? It’s an enticing question to contemplate a couple of weeks before Christmas, as the snow falls and hearts warm and everyone tries to look forward to a new year and the rebirth of hope. Today oil prices have rocketed up off their recent levels – zooming up […] Read more
Son of Smith
A rather jolly Niall Ferguson was just on TV promoting his new book on the history of money. For those who don’t know Ferguson, he’s a Scottish history professor who specializes in British and capitalistic business history, which are closely connected. The great first observer of capitalism in its very early stages was sage Scot […] Read more
Tiny crop, big impact
Yorkton isn’t the kind of dream destination that commonly attracts the powerful movers and shakers of the food industry. But last week, in the hall of St. Mary’s Catholic Cultural Centre, executives of all North America’s major oat processors and product manufacturers were present at the Prairie Oat Growers Association. These weren’t just junior flunkies […] Read more
Piracy may build into bigger problem
It’s bad enough when farmers’ grain runs into choppy seas because of credit problems. It’s another when cargo vessels are being seized by pirates on the high seas and held for ransom, as happened to a supertanker filled with $100 million of Saudi oil recently. So far, Canadian export grain shipments do not seem to […] Read more
Man. livestock producers feel ignored
The pain of Manitoba livestock producers poured out of the country and into the laps of provincial government ministers at last week’s Association of Manitoba Municipalities convention. “I think it is going to be a legacy of this government, the demise of the hog and cattle industries,” said cattle producer Tom Dickson of Pipestone during […] Read more
Wetlands need help surviving
A while ago, Roy Greer ran over a deer antler. It punctured a tire and caused an unplanned suspension of field operations on his farm. “It was a small tire, but it was $50 and three hours,” said Greer. He didn’t mind dealing with this situation, but it made him think about the cost for […] Read more
Turmoilto continue: analyst
Western Producer reporter Ed White is talking to the world’s top market analysts to bring a range of philosophies and insights into the current financial crisis. In this series, the analysts discuss what happened to predictions about the world being in a long-term bull market for commodities and whether the financial crisis changes the long-term […] Read more
