I might be presumptuous, but I think China’s capacity for canola imports is better than the pessimistic outlook issued by a major Chinese grain company executive. Felix Muller, head of global soft seeds for COFCO International, last week said China’s imports will likely be capped at about 10 percent above the current level. We’ve reported […] Read more
Tag Archives Market Watch
Special deal: three topics in one column
I’ll address several issues in this week’s column, from Saskatchewan crop yields to the value of the Canadian dollar to China’s changing support for domestic wheat producers. Currency dips The biggest market mover last week was the Canadian dollar’s decline to trade just below US78 cents. Only last month, most Canadian currency analysts predicted the […] Read more
China’s policy change bad for soybean imports
The adage is that big crops get bigger but that does not appear to be the case in U.S. soybeans this year. The trade last week expected the United States Department of Agriculture to raise its yield forecasts for corn and soybeans in its monthly report. It did raise the corn yield, but it lowered […] Read more
August crop forecasts tend to underestimate
Trying to forecast final production when the crop is still growing is like shooting at a fast-moving target. Statistics Canada planned to release its first projection of Canada’s 2017 crop on Aug. 31, after this column was written. We’ll have full same-day coverage on our website and also in next week’s paper. UPDATE: You can […] Read more
What happened to those burdensome wheat stocks?
With spring wheat prices soaring, farmers might be thinking that all that talk of huge world wheat stocks was a lie. Well, those stocks are still there, but the rapid development of a drought on the northern U.S. Plains this year has focused traders’ minds on a portion of the wheat market — the high […] Read more
Amazon purchase of Whole Foods in sync with consumer trends
News that Amazon is buying Whole Foods Market for US$13.7 billion probably did not make a big impact in the minds of prairie grain farmers busy monitoring for pests and spraying weeds. However, it could create a food retail sector shake-up that would vibrate down the food chain. The stock markets and business analysts were […] Read more
Bovine slaughter crackdown in India creates huge disruption
India’s central government has brought in a law that threatens to end the slaughter of cattle and buffalo in the country, raising the potential for the biggest change in the global beef market in decades. It is a shocking development, but its effect on beef markets has been negligible so far because most observers figure […] Read more
Expanding Chinese pig production is no black swan
Let’s talk about black swans and pigs in this column. The black swan is a metaphor, while the pigs are real. When I was in university, I had a summer job in a park in Moose Jaw, Sask. The park has a beautiful creek that was stocked with swans and ducks. One spring, the city […] Read more
Consumers developing hunger for meat again
Much is made of the growth of vegetarianism in North America, but domestic meat consumption data indicates that most people in Canada and the United States still have a taste for beef, pork and poultry. Jim Long of Genesus Genetics, a pig genetics company, often has interesting observations about the pork industry around the world. […] Read more
Canola: the heavyweight champion of prairie crops
There is a good chance Canadian farmers will seed a record large canola crop this spring. It might also for the first time exceed the all-wheat acreage. If so, it would become the undisputed dominant crop in Western Canada. Statistics Canada releases its seeding intentions report April 21. It will be based on surveys with […] Read more
