This will be remembered as the year when crop quality went to heck in a hand basket.
As this is being written, widespread frost is in the forecast. If it hits as expected, it will be one more downgrading factor for crops, many of which have already been hit with numerous rain events resulting in bleaching, sprouting, mildew and wrinkled seed coats.
Last year went down in history as by far the largest crop in the history of Western Canada, a bin buster that precipitated all sorts of logistical challenges.
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This year will be noted for crop quality issues that generate wide-ranging ramifications.
Although it will take time to know the grade distribution of the prairie crop, it’s safe to say that an abundance of feed wheat will be produced. With a monster corn crop south of the border, feed grain values overall would appear to have little upside potential. Add millions of tonnes of feed wheat to the barley crop on this side of the border and the price outlook is soft indeed.
Good news for the livestock sector. Not such good news for grain producers.
If a sizable percentage of the crop ends up in the feed category, finding a market for it all could be a slow process. It may end up sitting in storage for a while and unlike last year it might be through no fault of the railways.
Producers will be shopping grain samples to buyers looking for the best opportunities. Buyers will be scrambling to create blending opportunities whenever possible.
Expect at least regional shortages in some seed supplies for 2015. Many crops will lack suitable germination and vigour. Others will be too high in disease. Seed testing labs will be doing a brisk business in the months ahead.
In Manitoba, Keystone Agricultural Producers has been pushing for an AgriRecovery Program to provide additional assistance on land flooded this spring, a position supported by Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan.
Governments haven’t said no to AgriRecovery, but with increasing harvest frustrations, they will be wary about helping one segment of disadvantaged producers and not another.
Although we like to think of ourselves as mentally tough, a harvest such as this one is psychologically challenging. The field dries out just enough to get combining, only to have progress stopped by yet another rain that drops quality even further. Many producers have barely started harvesting.
When progress occurs it tends to happen if small chunks. Meanwhile daylight length is decreasing.
Stress levels are elevated. The un-certainty makes it worse. How bad is the sprouting in the wheat? Was the canola swathed in time to avoid most of the frost damage? How low will prices fall on lower quality production? Will harvest ever conclude?
Although as farmers we all know that we shouldn’t count our chickens before they hatch, it’s difficult not to tally up the losses. If the past month had been warm and relatively dry, there would have been billions of dollars more in the prairie economy.
There will be success stories where producers with good quality grain benefit from stronger demand and prices, but the majority will see a significant drop in returns.
The struggle continues to get that reduced quality crop into the bin and/or bag. Most of the crop is still in the field, but the excitement of harvest has lost much of its lustre. We’re reduced to making the best of a bad situation.
