Since this issue of Grainews is supposed to be on the press in two hours or less, there’s a good chance this week that I’ll either be very brief in this space, or not nearly brief enough. I really loathe leaving things like this to the last minute, but this past week didn’t work out that way.
In the writing business, that’s what’s we call “irony,” since a lot of ink in this issue turns out to be devoted to contingency planning.
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Letter to the Editor: Selenium, science and the risk of overstating harm
A letter to the editor of Grainews regarding an April 8, 2025 column on the risks of selenium contamination in waterways.
On page 6, you’ll see Lee Hart’s chat with our mutual friend and previous colleague Maggie Van Camp, who has made a mission of helping farmers navigate the practicalities and potential pitfalls of planning for succession. In Maggie’s case, such foresight was invaluable following her husband’s unexpected death, and she’s now making similar plans as her own children approach full-time farming age.
On page 19, Ross McKenzie fires up the spreadsheets to help irrigators calculate their best use of water, against the very real possibility of allocation cuts if snowpack remains low and slows the flow from the Rockies this spring.
In the Cattleman’s Corner section on page 27, our columnist Heather Eppich tells of the arrival of her new baby girl (congratulations!). The family took extra care to plan their trip home during January’s cold snap — a weather event which might have taken other less cautious people by surprise considering how warm late 2023 and early 2024 have otherwise been.
Even your tractor may soon be a better advance planner than I was this week. On page 10, Doug Ferguson tells us about the work of SB Quantum, a Quebec company using quantum magnetometers to measure fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field, so as to better set a self-driving tractor’s directional heading, where other GPS-based systems’ maneuverability may be limited by the need to correct for heading errors.
Now, back to the irony: I didn’t plan in advance for this issue to wind up with such a focus on planning. It just worked out that way. Our columnists and friends this week will advise you against expecting things to work out in your favour — and believe me or not, so will I.
Is that “planning for failure” — a practice one of my favourite cartoon characters quite unfairly mocks as “even dumber than regular planning”? Of course it’s planning for failure, because there’s a big difference between expecting to fail and knowing what your options will be when or if circumstances don’t pan out as expected.
Case in point: the ag finance arm of Rabobank — which last year announced its entry to the Canadian farm-level lending market — just published its latest North American agribusiness review, which offers caution against bullish economic indicators. For Canada specifically, the lender emphasizes our battle against inflation is “not yet over.” The energy complex has been seen as the main driver pushing headline inflation lower, but Rabobank cautions that “relying on lower energy prices to slow price pressures is more prayer than policy” and it does see some upside for oil prices as 2024 progresses.
As for weather, the lender notes the expectations for our current El Niño winter to make the transition to neutral, and then move to La Niña conditions this summer. In other words, “North America is poised for a wet spring, accompanied by warmer temperatures across Canada and the northeast United States.” If that climate pattern pans out as expected, that “should significantly benefit wheat and other spring crops, setting a promising stage for the 2024 season.”
However — because of course there’s a “however” — it notes the possibility of unexpected cold fronts going through wheat-growing areas of the U.S. Plains and cautions that for U.S. agriculture in particular, the transition from El Niño to La Niña, and the pacing of same, “will prove critical this summer… and underpins the uncertainty we are facing in 2024.”
As for fertilizer markets, “costs have to come down, and hopefully they will,” RaboBank writes, as an “increasingly weak outlook for grower margins should pull input prices lower.” However, it says, given the seasonality of prices and the factors we see at play in geopolitics and trade in 2024, some of that downtrend “may be timed out of the 2024 planting season.”
Hopefully we’ll have more on this report and other analysis as we get closer to seeding, but as I said, the deadline is looming — and wouldn’t you know it, this report just landed unexpectedly on my desk today.
