You’ve got to have a pretty tough gut to live the life of a farm marketing advisor. You live the life of telling farmers when to sell their crops, knowing you’re almost never going to pick the top of the market and will occasionally make sell recommendations near the bottoms. Most advisors make no claim […] Read more
Ed White
Stories by Ed White
Edge markets
A lot of farmers find it tough enough just trying to make money marketing the big crops like wheat, canola and barley. But selling those crops is a piece of cake compared to trying to grow, store and market the bizarre little micro-acreage crops that some gutsy farmers embrace. That includes hemp, a crop that […] Read more
Productivity gains mask market ups and downs
Why can’t agricultural commodities hold on to price gains for long? After all, the world continues to produce more food-consuming people, even though it isn’t producing more farmland. Internationally respected market guru Dennis Gartman has an answer. “In the ag commodities, farmers are just way smarter than anybody thought they were and continue to get […] Read more
Hog exports stall with COOL rules
Perry Mohr has a good business situation for a bad reason. “We’re turning away some new business,” said Mohr, general manager of Manitoba Pork Marketing Co-op (MPMC). “I could sell far more hogs than we’re selling right now. The problem is finding someone to buy them.” That’s because the U.S. border is essentially shut to […] Read more
Pig market chaos plagues U.S., too
Canadian hog farmers are taking the biggest hits, but American hog feeders are also in turmoil over the border disruption. “It’s a very upsetting situation, the whole thing,” said Iowa hog producer Bryan Karwal, who buys Canadian weanlings and feeds pigs for a Manitoba Hutterite colony. “It’s not a good scenario and I don’t know […] Read more
Crop prices slump with demand, cattle numbers
Crop prices should be bouncing high right now, not dribbling along the floor. But little about this year’s agricultural markets fits the usual profile, says DTN senior analyst Darin Newsom. “There’s just no one to step in and push this market higher, which we normally see at this time of year,” said Newsom. In most […] Read more
Fertilizer may affect pulse plans
Farmers are not planning to add more pulse acres as long as nitrogen prices keep dropping. That’s what farmers at the Canadian Pulse Research Workshop in Winnipeg said Nov. 6. “Nitrogen probably won’t be as big a factor as it was (last spring), but producers will be watching very closely to see how the different […] Read more
Zoom out for better focus on the subject – Hedge Row
Remember when you were a kid and you wondered how high you could make that swing go? If you really laid back and pulled forward on the chains with all your might and kicked out your legs, you might end up equal to the height of the swing set’s central bar and perhaps a bit […] Read more
Analysts believe bulls will return
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
Hungry, hungry hippo.
When China opens up its hippo-sized mouth and gulps, it sucks in a lot of commodities. That’s why the Asian and European markets rocketed higher overnight – especially the stocks of companies that mine and trade commodities. China announced a huge fiscal stimulus package – almost US $600 billion – and anyone mining or sitting […] Read more
