Manitoba is gripped in a terrible state of anxiety right now, as the provincial government assesses hour by hour when to blow a hole through the dike at the Hoop and Holller Bend southeast of Portage la Prairie, flooding 256 square kilometres of farmland and about 150 farm houses and rural homes. Everyone expects the […] Read more
Tag Archives Commodities — page 11
Evacuation
Stabilized
Well, I’ve got to admit I’m happy I gave a number of reasons on Friday to not believe that crops had necessarily topped and were irrevocably heading downwards – yet. On Friday things had stabilized. Monday was a good day. Today’s a bad day, so far. USDA stats are weighing on the market, but chartwise […] Read more
Devastation of the Portage vegetable industry
It is shocking to hear today of the impending planned devastation of four of the biggest vegetable farms in the Portage la Prairie area tomorrow. The provincial government has decided to breach the dikes east of Portage to save about 800 houses, and that will flood tens of thousands of acres. If it was low […] Read more
Commodity collapse on the charts
Take a walk with me while I look at some charts putting this week’s commodities collapse into some perspective. I hope to take you from panic to a more relaxed sense of alarm. The CRB Index compiles all the major commodities. Here’s what it’s done in the last week: Ugly. Notice the gap? It’s hard […] Read more
Time for a Clarity Act on the CWB?
Farmers wondering about their marketing plans now that the Conservatives have a majority should be happy that Liberal Stephane Dion was re-elected. He can give Prime Minister Stephen Harper advice on how to write another Clarity Act , this one for the government’s intentions with the Canadian Wheat Board. Thousands of farmers are probably now […] Read more
Can’t feel too cruel this late April
April can be the cruelest month, bringing false crops of thistles out of the dead land, mixing memory of harvest rains with vain desire for a perfect spring seeding season, stirring dead winter wheat stands with the last shreds of snow . . . Actually, I can’t feel that way this late-April, although I must […] Read more
Bullish and buildish
Today I hope to first warm your hearts with a bullish crop price forecast, then bolster your confidence with a buildish crop market development initiative. (I’m saving bearish thoughts for tomorrow.) Here’s the bullish crop market outlook, from Hussein Allidina of Morgan Stanley, the U.S. Investment bank: “I think actually that there is a lot […] Read more
And now, we return to our normal relentless focus on the weather . . .
This morning StatsCan came out this morning with some eye-popping increases in farmers’ acreage intentions – and the market’s ignoring it. Or rather, the market’s saying: “Yep, that’s what we thought.” Although some of the acreage numbers are on the high side of trade guesses, most traders and analysts don’t expect farmers to be able […] Read more
Nothing happened, thankfully say I
Well, I’m a back after three weeks away from work helping to look after our newborn baby girl and trying to keep up with the chaos created continuously by our two-year-old and three-and-a-half year old daughters. While most of you, in readiness for spring, have been busy working on the Big Iron, I’ve been busy […] Read more
Setting the field for the battle
Japanese nuclear meltdowns? Who cares? The Arab world revolting and rebelling? Whatever . . . All the ag markets care about today is the USDA prospective plantings report, and about an hour from now the Chicago market opens, so we’ll see where we go from here. The report does not contain any shockers. Slightly more […] Read more
