In an enclosed handling facility at Nature Energy Månsson, a biogas plant in Brande, Denmark, a massive claw hoisted a mixture of manure and straw. The facility works co-operatively with 50 livestock farmers who supply manure for off-gassing. This carefully contained, excremental mess stands in sharp contrast to the plant’s gleaming exterior.
It is a valuable livestock feed, food ingredient, beer component and is even used to lower blood pressure, but if barley loses its market, farmers will feel the economic pressure. After Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver in 2019, China banned two major Canadian grain trading companies from exporting canola seed to that country. While the three-year prohibition was lifted in May of 2022, it left the barley sector to question its own trade relationship with China. Could Canada be next? If so, what then?
“Is it really necessary to spray in all cases?” It’s a question posed by Brent Puchalski, a molecular plant pathologist. Up to 75 per cent of all fungicide application is either off target or worse, has no target, he warned.
The job of an agricultural analyst is to have an opinion on every topic and an answer for every question. And most of us prefer fundamentals—supply and demand. However, in 2022, macroeconomics and geopolitics held sway and muted some of the price movements that could have occurred if fundamentals dominated the market. Moreover, the variables needed for any model explaining potential price direction have expanded. To get my bearings at times like these, I resort to the Coma Test.
There’s no doubt 2022 was a record breaker. As the cost of living has risen, food prices and input costs reached all-time highs. As well, the monthly growth rate for input prices is three times higher than that of food. These inputs are critical to food production, and rising prices signal increased fragility within our global food systems.
The Port of Prince Rupert is a remote but critical link in the Canadian crop export chain. Located in Prince Rupert Harbour just south of the Alaska Panhandle on British Columbia’s rugged Pacific coastline, its facilities are strung along a 20-kilometre stretch of Kaien Island, adjacent to the Prince Rupert townsite.
When he and his wife Gabriele immigrated to Kaslo, B.C., from a small Bavarian town in the summer of 1979, Silvio Lettrari craved the sourdough bread he grew up eating. He began baking and selling his own loaves as a summer project in 1991. Locals raved and demand grew, so the couple launched Kaslo Sourdough in 1993 and marketed their bread across the West Kootenays.
Markets, trade and technical services are at the core of Cereals Canada operations. With the onset of COVID-19 in spring 2020, many of the organization’s activities, including international new crop missions, were conducted virtually. This past July, Cereals Canada returned to in-person operations.
Grain and oilseed market analysis should boil down to two questions: How much did farmers produce, and how much was consumed? This leaves a residual, which is the gap between total supply and total demand. The larger the residual (ending stocks) the more pressure on prices and vice versa. A fundamentals-driven analyst would look closely at the magnitude (big/little) and direction (up/down) of ending stocks and be able to discern price direction. Unfortunately, for farmers and consumers, macroeconomics and geopolitical aspects matter and often dominate the determination of prices.
From Aug. 10-12, the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC) and its members held the 2022 Western Canada Barley Crop Tour, the first time in three years the event has been held in person. Approximately 50 representatives from across the barley value chain gathered in central Saskatchewan. The group included maltsters and brewers, Canadian farmers and grain companies, as well as buyers of Canadian barley and malt from around the world. The tour included several beer industry representatives from Japan, one of Canada’s largest malt markets. Among them were technical and purchasing staff from Asahi and Sapporo Breweries.
