Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — Mild weather, fewer cattle and a growing list of alternative grains led Canadian cattle to chew through less feed in the first five months of the 2014-15 crop year. According to Tuesday’s grain stocks report from Statistics Canada, feed barley usage was at 2.67 million tonnes as of Dec. 31, down from […] Read more
Cattle chew through less grain in 2014-15, so far
U.S. grains: Soybeans slip as dollar firms, crude oil falls
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. soybean futures fell 1.5 per cent on Wednesday, retreating from a three-week high notched Tuesday as the dollar rose, traders said. Outlooks for the driest areas of Brazil’s crop region calling for rain this week and the falling crude oil market also hurt soy prices. “Today, cooler heads prevailed and […] Read more
Canada’s large canola stocks top expectations
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — Releasing its Canadian year-end stocks estimates, Statistics Canada painted a picture Tuesday that’s mostly bearish for canola. StatsCan’s figure for canola stocks as of Dec. 31, at 11.103 million tonnes, was at the high end of expectations, surpassing what some market watchers anticipated. “I’m not sure if that means that StatsCan’s production number […] Read more
StatsCan canola stocks expected to drop from year-ago mark
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada –– With Statistics Canada releasing its estimates Wednesday for crop stocks as of Dec. 31, canola supplies are generally expected to fall compared to year-ago levels. The lower stocks estimates are mainly linked to smaller production in 2014-15, compared to the record large crop grown in 2013-14, analysts say. “Stocks were pretty high […] Read more
U.S. grains: Markets sag under pressure from hefty global supplies
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. wheat futures dropped to a four-month low on Monday while corn and soybeans hovered near multi-month lows as large crop inventories kept a lid on prices. Traders focused on hefty grain supplies as crop weather improved in South America, with scattered showers in Brazil easing concerns about drought curtailing soybean […] Read more
Upward revisions expected in StatsCan report
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada –– Canada’s major agricultural crops likely yielded a bit better than earlier estimates, and most industry participants anticipate Statistics Canada’s production numbers will be revised higher in a report due out Thursday. However, the extent of those adjustments could be limited. “The (production) numbers will probably go up for all commodities… wheat, durum, […] Read more
Farm debt ratio in Canada could create an agricultural ‘bust’
Will history repeat itself, with a sell-off fuelled by farm debt?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Are we heading into another bust in agriculture, as happened in the late 1920s and in the 1980s? This is the fear of some farmers, and of some agricultural economists too. George Brinkman, professor emeritus at the University of Guelph, believes Canadian farmers are seriously over-leveraged and that there simply is not enough farm income […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
