It’s been a busy week in the beef markets, impacted largely by growing North American beef and pork supplies, spotty feed availability, and the August 9th fire at Tyson’s beef processing plant in Kansas. Regular RealAgriculture guest Anne Wasko of the Gateway Livestock Exchange spent some of her week in Calgary, at the Canadian Beef… Read More
Canada’s food retailers have been looking to reduce competitive price wars — but it’s not enough to ease continued food inflation. That’s market analyst Kevin Grier’s take on what’s happening across Canada’s food retail landscape. Earlier this week, Grier joined RealAg Radio host Shaun Haney to discuss his latest Grocery Trade Report and says grocery retailers may… Read More
Grain markets in the second half of this week battled to recoup its losses from the first half after the USDA said there was way more corn planted and its yields would be better, basically contradicting everything that the market was expecting. The biggest surprise from the USDA on Monday was acres. Everyone and their… Read More
The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) is reporting a continued downward trend in Canadian agricultural tractor and combine sales for July. According to the monthly report, self-propelled combine sales, at 163 were down 43.8 per cent, when compared to July 2018. Year-to-date sales were also down, from 1121 in 2018 to 839 this year, a… Read More
This week the markets have shown many points of stress, as they react to Monday’s USDA report that shocked many farmers and analysts. On RealAg Radio on Thursday, Shaun Haney was joined by Ted Seifried of Zaner Ag Hedge to break it all down. Seifried described Thursday’s pricing action as a day that the “dust… Read More
In addition to maintaining or improving current trade relations, the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) is also focused on diversifying beef exports. However, the work comes with challenges. Back in June, China had requested Canada to hold off its export certificates to the country. Since then, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has submitted the technical… Read More
Despite growing concerns for the B.C. economy and rising global trade tensions, the Port of Vancouver has shipped an increased amount of commodities in the first half of 2019. This news is in addition to strong agricultural commodity shipments reported by both CN Rail and CP Rail last week. Pulse crop exports were up significantly… Read More
The fury and confusion hasn’t quite settled, following the USDA’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report released this week. “(It) doesn’t make any sense, and I think probably 98 per cent of the people, and market analysts, farmers, grain buyers, etc. all thought the exact same thing — probably actually 99.8 per cent,”… Read More
Could 2019 be another ‘gibb’ year for corn growers? That’s a question RealAgriculture agronomist Peter Johnson encounters almost daily. When asked, he says there’s “not a chance” of the widespread gibberella outbreak Ontario growers experienced in 2018. However, he notes that “in isolated areas, we do have a high risk of gibberella ear rot infection… Read More
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is out with its monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE). It appears as though corn is back as king, with the department forecasting corn production at 13.9 billion bushels — that’s up 26 million from last month’s projection. The first yield forecast of the season, which… Read More
As many producers are aware, there are a plethora of things going on in the global economic sphere… and growing concerns are rising. But how do we understand what everything means? How do we unpack it all? Farm Credit Canada’s chief economist J.P. Gervais joined RealAg Radio host Shaun Haney to give a little more… Read More
Grain markets found gains the first full week of trading in August, ahead of Monday’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, a report that the complex has been waiting for since the July WASDE. Going into the report, the sentiment is fairly bullish as there are some major reductions of U.S. acreage, production,… Read More
Ontario’s minister of agriculture is asking — again — that the federal government move on with resolving large-scale trade issues with China, and that the feds provide compensation for the meat sector in the meantime. Following up on a request made in early July and post-federal-provincial-territorial (FPT) meeting of agriculture ministers at Quebec City, Minister… Read More
The calendar has flipped into August and cattle producers are looking forward to the fall yearling and feeder run. During the past week, live cattle struggled to gain momentum but ended up fairing better than lean hogs in the face of heavy selling of pork futures. There is a lot of pressure on hogs due… Read More
Grain markets had a tough turn of the calendar from July to August, as the complex dealt with a couple of factors that pushed it lower. From a performance standpoint, corn prices lost about seven per cent for the month of July, while soybean and hard red spring wheat prices basically ended July where they… Read More