Two days ago I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. Today I’m huddled in my house watching the snow fall. Yup, must be the prairies in October.
This is the first day of a week-and-a-half staycation I’m taking to use up some holiday days and golly didn’t I pick a good time to be off! Gotta go look out the winter coats.
Read Also
Producers face the reality of shifting grain price expectations
Significant price shifts have occurred in various grains as compared to what was expected at the beginning of the calendar year. Crop insurance prices can be used as a base for the changes.
Inevitably my mind turns to notions of darkness, death, greyness, stillness – then resurrection, rebirth and the green of new growth. Also to hogs and cattle. And it’s all mixed up together. Along with the thoughts of some leading economists of ag that I’ve been interviewing in recent days.
And in contrast to the grimness outside my window and the despairing, depressed feeling inside the hog industry – which I cover – and anxiety in the cattle industry – which I don’t cover much but have been looking at since the XL Foods fiasco began – I feel generally cheerful about the long term outlook for both the hog and cattle industries. I’ve been writing about the generally profitable outlook for a couple of weeks in our newspaper, but my interviews with the economists have profoundly reinforced my optimism.
The sense I got from all of them is that after this period of crisis, despair, anxiety and financial devastation (mostly to the hog producers) there will be a resurrection of profitability in the spring, then a long period of profitable life and growth. Apparently my mind has jumped forward six months and I’m thinking Easter thoughts. I always seem to be negatively correlated to the present season . . .
But it’s very funny to realize that so much optimism and confidence is coming from the economists, who are famously known as practitioners of the “dismal science.” Right now they’re anything but dismal about the long term picture for livestock producers. Their basic outlook was the North America is still an ideal place to produce cattle and pigs, both environmentally and politically (stable countries), and that the economic ravaging the livestock industries have suffered as grain prices have sporadically surged is likely ending.
As one told me yesterday about his prediction of grain production growing, grain demand slowing, meat demand continuing to grow and herds taking years to rebuild after the present liquidation phase: “That would be a period that would really favour animal production.”
He also said “I’m kind of optimistic.” That was an understatement and anyone who knows economists knows they hate to admit those sorts of feelings. Doesn’t fit well with the image.
So here we are with the snow falling, the skies greying, the greenness fleeing – and everything looks great . . . six months from now.
Just gotta survive those six months.
Now where the heck did I leave those Sorels?
