Nothing ventured, nothing gained, but how do you manage to tip the chance of gain in your favour?
In agriculture there are many variables that are well out of our control — whether it be ranching, farming or anywhere in between, producers deal with volatile input prices, commodity price fluctuations, and, of course, the weather. According to new data from the January 2025 RealAgristudies Canadian Farmer Sentiment Index, farmers feel there’s more risk to navigate this year over last and the year previously.
Last month, RealAgristudies surveyed 660 farmers across the country on a number of topics for the index. One of the areas of focus was the perception and management of risk.
Sixty eight percent of producers see 2025 as having more risk than 2024, while thirty one percent see the same risk, and one percent see less risk. In January of 2024, RealAgristudies asked the same question and seventy five percent said 2024 had more risk than 2023.
When we look deeper in the demographic differences, there are rather stable responses across ages, farm size, and farm type. The differences in how producers see risk in 2025 shows up when we look at a couple factors: seventy percent of Western Canadian farmers and sixty five percent of Eastern Canadian farmers see the year ahead as more risky than 2024.
The other area where we see a difference in producer types is in the livestock sector, and when we we look at supply managed vs non-supply managed. Seventy percent of non-supply managed farmers see the current year as riskier than last year, while slightly less supply managed farmers do at sixty five percent.
In October, when we asked about areas of concerns facing farmers, the leading variables were: commodity prices, input prices and weather. Likely an added variable not listed in the survey at the time would be possible tariffs by the U.S., though not part of the Index. (You can see more of how farmers answered questions about tariff risk, here.)
