“It’s very difficult to seed winter wheat on land that still has a crop on it,” said Monica Klaas, a contract agronomist for Ducks Unlimited’s Western Winter Wheat Initiative based in southern Alberta.

That sums up sentiments throughout most of the Prairies, as harvest continues for many farmers struggling with wet, cold weather conditions.

Klaas said she has seen some acres seeded in the light brown soil zones of southern Alberta, areas where producers traditionally keep winter wheat in their regular rotations. However, she said, acres have slid again overall.

In addition to the wet harvest weather, Klaas said extreme dry weather in late July and August prompted many growers to delay preparation work for winter wheat seeding, opting to wait for rain first.

“Then when the rain came, and didn’t stop and was mixed with snow, you had people abandoning the idea of winter wheat and focusing on harvest and drying grain and things like that.”

In Manitoba, Ken Gross saw producers struggle with similar weather issues.

“I think my feeling is that acres are down this year,” said Gross, manager for agricultural programs at Ducks Unlimited in Brandon and lead for the organization’s winter wheat programs.

He said he expects to receive data on firm seeding numbers in late November.

In addition to weather issues, he said winter wheat faced other problems this year as well.

Producers’ heads have been turned by new spring wheat varieties, such as Faller and Prosper with yields of about 15 per cent below winter wheat. Spring wheat traditionally has yielded about 40 per cent below winter wheat varieties, Gross said.

As well, hybrid rye varieties are gaining popularity, which have been shown to be more hardy than winter wheat, he said.

Doug Martin, who farms near East-Selkirk, Man., said that seems to be the case in his area, where good contracts for hybrid rye convinced many farmers to go that route.

While he is confident that winter wheat acres will be down in his area northeast of Winnipeg, growers who managed to get seed in the ground are likely seeing their crops get a good start.

“What went in, if it got in early, with the moisture now, is probably doing quite well.”

Back in Alberta, Klaas said the same holds true there, although she pointed out that winter wheat yields depend mostly on spring conditions.

She added that growers should view this year as a lesson in why they should work winter wheat into their rotations.

Harvest conditions in August were perfect for getting the crop in and it spreads out the work load, which is especially important when wet, messy weather delays the traditional harvest season in September and October.

“We just need to remember what a bear this harvest was,” she said.

“It’s the shoulda, coulda, woulda, and unfortunately, we’re now in the cycle when people are struggling to get this late crop off, and they get to spring and turnaround and seed it back into a spring crop,” she said.

Winter wheat must be part of a planned rotation, she added, and producers need to pencil it into their plans to help spread out the risk and the labour.

In Manitoba, Gross said he has high expectations for new varieties of winter wheat that should help the crop regain its yield advantage over spring wheat.

“It’s been a frustrating couple of years. I keep on waiting for the weather to improve but Mother Nature is not co-operating.”

Ducks Unlimited representatives in Saskatchewan did not return phone calls in time for this story.

Winter wheat area seeded the previous fall

• 2018 1.23 million acres
• 2017 1.38 million acres
• 2016 1.72 million acres
• 2015 1.31 million acres
• 2014 1.72 million acres
  *Source: Statistics Canada

Winter wheat production

• 2018 2.39 million tonnes
• 2017 2.86 million tonnes
• 2016 3.67 million tonnes
• 2015 2.30 million tonnes
• 2014 2.95 million tonnes
  *Source: Statistics Canada

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However, farmers with peas might see better market conditions over the course of the shipping year because of the United States-China trade war.

“For our purposes, when we look at balance sheet for lentils and peas, we are not seeing much interest this year,” said Marlene Boersch of Mercantile Consulting Ventures.

But she said the prospects for peas could shape up if China goes looking for soybean substitutes to feed its hogs, which is already happening to some degree and Boersch believes will likely increase as the trade war builds to new heights.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Oct. 30 that his administration is ready to slap tariffs on all remaining Chinese imports worth an estimated US$257 billion, if trade talks fail.

“So that doesn’t give a lot of long-term optimism,” Boersch said.

She said she doubts China will capitulate to U.S. demands and that will send it looking to source commodities from other countries.

“I’m thinking they will also buy more peas. That’s my personal opinion. I’m not worried about the peas, but I think the lentil market will take another year to sort itself out. You just have to manage stocks right now.

“India is not going to be the solution.”

She said lentil growers will likely have wait until after the India election set for next April or May for markets to improve.

India is a top producer and consumer of pulses in the world and had been a top importer until it initiated strict import restrictions last fall. The country is attempting to generate more domestic production, while also maintaining incomes through minimum support prices. That has led to oversupply and many states have been buying up supplies, leading to large stockpiles. In turn, those heavy stocks have weighed on prices, dragging most of prices to below minimum support levels.

“It becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy,” Boersch said.

Reports out of India point to a large harvest for the kharif crop currently underway, which will add to the country’s already large supply.

In an update offered through the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers website, global market commodities specialist G. Chandrashekhar stated that India’s current kharif harvest will mark the fifth consecutive harvest (two per year) of large pulse crops.

India’s ministry of agriculture estimated 2018-19 pulse production at 9.2 million tonnes, slightly higher than the season’s target of 8.9 million tonnes.

The country now has to find a use for the oversupply, said Chandrashekhar, with government stocks estimated at four million tonnes, most of that in chickpeas (2.6 million tonnes) and pigeon peas (1.2 million tonnes).

And more supply could still be on the way, as Indian farmers show no signs of turning away from seeding more pulses for the upcoming Rabi crop, which is seeded in November and December.

“I would say it’s a little bit of a problem of their own making. When you interfere in the market that tends to happen,” Boersch said.

That’s little consolation to Canadian growers holding lentils, she acknowledged.

“That doesn’t give a lot of long-term optimism.”

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Eldon Dueck, grain merchant at Linear Grain in Carman, Man., said farmer offerings in his region remain slow, but he’s heard that a lot of feed wheat and barley might be flowing into the feedlot dense areas of Alberta.

“It is a bit different (in Manitoba),” he said.

“Corn seems to be pricing in better than barley and feed wheat.”

Dueck said corn prices to farmers were currently about C$4.75 to C$5 per bushel.

He said Manitoba has good supplies of feed grains, but feedlots haven’t entered the market in any big way.

“I think they’ve got a good part of their stock contracted already, but there’s still some openings now that the feed barley is coming onto the market,” he said.

Prices for feed barley in his region run near C$225 per tonne, which is still fairly high for the area. Feed wheat is fetching about C$240 to C$250 per tonne, he said.

In feedlot alley of southern Alberta, Allen Pirness of Marketplace Commodities in Lethbridge, said feedlots have not been quick with new purchases despite the added feed grains, especially feed wheat, coming into the market. Most feedlots have enough.

Heavy export demand for feed barley earlier this year prompted many feedlots to hedge their positions with other supplies.

“That kind of motivated the feedlots to get a pretty decent corn position for the fall and winter here, so they’re pretty covered. There isn’t a lot of extra demand.”

Cattle placements are arriving in feedlots so that should increase feed use, he added.

Wet, cold weather for most of September prevented many farmers from harvesting their crops and that caused downgrades.

But the weather situation recently turned around and many farmers in central Alberta managed to get their crops off dry during the past two weeks. However, Pirness acknowledged there could be some pockets of higher moisture areas remaining.

“Even the stuff that was flattened into the ground, guys were taking it off dry.”

That’s good news, he added, because there are no takers for wet grain, which has to be worked into feeding rations immediately.

Prices in his area are falling, normal for this time of year, with feed barley at C$230 to $235 per tonne, for November delivery.

The feed wheat situation has become more volatile, Pirness said.

“That’s really flipped here in the last few weeks, where feed wheat was trading at a premium to barley and corn, now it’s trading at a discount.”

Feed wheat is presently selling at about C$230 per tonne in his area, he said.

“But because of the high usage of corn right now, there isn’t a lot demand for feed wheat in the feedlots.”

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Ben Friesen, manager of the sunflowers, flax and bird food division for the Scoular Co. in Winkler, said although only a few samples have come in, what he’s seen so far is promising.

Sunflower growers normally start harvest in the third or fourth week of October, so Friesen said it’s on schedule.

The heavy precipitation that fell recently should not affect too many plants, he said.

“They’re OK, as long as we don’t get a huge snow that will break them down. The snow that just came along now, it just kind of messed things up a bit. It wasn’t breaking them down or anything. So yeah, they’re surviving pretty good.”

Scoular contracts most of the confection sunflowers in Manitoba and has moved into Alberta with some contracts as well. The company also holds some oilseed contracts.

Prices for oilseed sunflowers are currently in the 22-23 cents/lb. range, he said, while confection sunflowers under contract are in the low 30s.

Prices have been steady for several months, he said, as the industry tries to use up a backlog of supply.

“I wouldn’t say we got too much supply, not in the long run, but it is going to take a while. There’s a bit of a bulk that’s been built up here for the last few months. It needs to go through the system.”

Scoular is trying to work through the buildup and has been running its plant at full capacity, he said.

In recent years, the sunflower market has gradually shifted away from confection into more oilseed types — and that trend continued this year.

Based on insured acreage data from Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp., growers seeded 34.6 per cent to confection type sunflowers in 2018. The rest were in oilseed types.

Dane Froese, industry development specialist for oilseeds with Manitoba Agriculture, said he believed yields this year will come in higher than Statistics Canada’s estimates of 1,800 lbs./ac.

StatsCan estimated sunflower growers would harvest 58,000 tonnes from 70,000 seeded acres this year.

Froese said the key sunflower-growing area, south of the Trans-Canada Highway, was lucky with weather for the most part and he expected the recent precipitation would not have a significant effect.

“So that could work out well in our favour and we could see yields higher than StatsCan reports, but this has yet to be determined as the harvest moves on a little further.”

Few disease issues were reported this year, he added, and most of the crop standing in fields should do OK. Desiccated sunflowers could be more susceptible to breakage but that hasn’t yet been reported as a major problem.

On the marketing side, Froese said the closure of the Spitz plant at Bow Island, Alta., earlier this year means almost all sunflower seeds grown in Canada are sold into the U.S., both confection and oil types.

StatsCan’s estimated 2018 production of 58,400 tonnes, represents at 1.4 per cent increase from 2017 production of 57,600 tonnes.

The previous five-year average for sunflower production is 57,540 tonnes, but removing the huge crop of 72,600 tonnes in 2015, the four-year average is 53,775 tonnes.

Of 2018 production, Manitoba is expected to have 50,200 tonnes of the total, Saskatchewan 3,500 tonnes and Alberta 3,600.

Outside of the Prairies, Quebec is expected to produce 400 tonnes.

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow CNS Canada at @CNSCanada on Twitter.

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Ted Haney, executive director of the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance, said hemp growers are going through a year in which they are learning how to work with new rules brought in this August.

Those rules permit hemp growers to sell hemp plants’ leaves, buds and flowers, which in the past they would have blown out the backs of their combines as chaff.

The next step, Haney said, is getting government to remove the restrictions that require these products to be handled only by licensed dealers.

Hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) should be handled differently than the product containing THC, but Health Canada currently treats them the same, he said.

“Yet the risk profiles of the products are so dramatically different that it, from our perspective, is not a common-sense approach,” he said.

“So that’s a very narrow, very conservative and very risk-adverse, precautionary principle approach to regulation.”

The common sense approach would allow for CBD extraction in both streams, he said, with hemp-derived CBD to be guided by regulations for food and supplements.

Oct. 17 marks the first day on which hemp growers have been allowed to deliver the buds, flowers and leaves they collected, as regulations surrounding the legalization of recreational cannabis take effect.

Growers are permitted to sell those products only to licensed processors certified to handle regular cannabis, even though hemp contains less than 0.3 per cent THC, the chemical that produces the high effect.

“There were several large, small and medium producers who did harvest the chaff this year. Others are still in harvest as we speak because of the snow and the rain,” said Haney.

The leaf, bud and flower parts of the plant are sought after for their CBD, or cannabidiol, a naturally occurring compound in hemp.

The term cannabinoid refers to several naturally occurring compounds in the plants, including cannabidiol and THC. CBD is used in medical marijuana, in combination with THC, in drops and other delivery forms to treat pain, anxiety, as a sleep aid and as an anti-inflammatory.

Hemp-derived CBD is used as a health food ingredient, with no specific health claims, in bars, supplements, cereals and other products.

Haney said the lengthy and expensive process for processors to get proper licensing, and the added security costs required for producers and processors of THC-containing products, are unnecessary for the hemp-derived products.

The hemp industry, he said, plans to make its position clear during Health Canada’s public consultation period on cannabis edibles, which are slated to become legal next year.

Meanwhile, this year’s hemp harvest was a patchwork affair, with areas in the south under irrigation producing good crops. Producers in those areas were also fortunate enough to get their harvest in before the heavy rain and snow hit in September.

Areas north of Highway 16 are a different story, Haney said. A lot of hemp remains standing in fields in those regions.

As well, the growing season was marked with spotty rains and drought, he said.

“Overall, I think the crop is going to be somewhat down, assuredly so, because of the difficult harvest.”

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

Table: Hemp seeded acreage for 2017

Source: Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance

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Natalie Hasell, a weather preparedness meteorologist for Environment Canada in Winnipeg, said most regions of British Columbia, Alberta, and southern and central Saskatchewan are in the warm weather already, as of Wednesday. Southern Manitoba residents will be able to bask in similar unseasonably warm temperatures Thursday.

“We’ve got a good stretch of dry, sunny weather,” she said.

A thermal ridge is bringing welcome relief, after four weeks of cold, wet weather prevented many farmers from getting crops off fields.

Temperatures should continue at seasonal levels or above for the next seven days across most regions of the Prairies, Hasell said.

The harvest problems are particularly acute in central and northern areas of the grain belt and farmers in those regions should see harvest windows appear.

“This will be an opportunity for farmers who are delayed … they will be able to do that over the next seven days,” Hasell said.

After that, the weather returns to seasonal, except in northern areas of western Alberta and B.C., which will continue to enjoy warmer weather later into next week.

She cautioned the 14-day forecast is a long time off, so the situation may yet change, but the prospects currently look good.

The Saskatoon area, for example, is currently experiencing above-normal temperatures, and will see temperatures slide back to normal later his week.

“But we see a return to warmer than that very quickly. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. By the time we get to Monday next week, we’re back to 15 C; Tuesday is 15 C in the current forecast.

“It’s a good time for those who were delayed and a good time to get ready for what’s coming next,” she said.

Northern Manitoba and far northeastern Saskatchewan residents may find themselves left out in the cold, however, as they remain on the cold side of the front.

Across the Prairies, Environment Canada forecasts unseasonable warmth for many areas.

Calgary temperatures are projected to fall into the low teens over the weekend, but then rise to 21 C by Tuesday.

Edmonton forecasts show temperatures in the mid-teens for the weekend and through to the following Tuesday.

In Alberta’s Peace region, Grande Prairie is expected to reach highs of 10 C to 12 C during the weekend, reaching highs of 13 C by Tuesday.

In Saskatchewan, Regina-area residents can expect similar temperatures to those outlined for Saskatoon, reaching 16 C on Tuesday.

Even the northeastern part of the province, where residents may see temperatures fall back down to 6 C by Saturday, should see a return to temperatures of about 14 C by Tuesday.

In Manitoba, Brandon-area residents will likely see mid-week warm temperatures decline to about 6 C by Saturday, but rebound to highs of about 11 C by Tuesday.

South of Winnipeg, at Morris, temperatures are expected to reach 19 C by Thursday, fall to 6 C by Saturday and climb to 9 C by Tuesday.

In Dauphin, this week’s unseasonable warmth will likely be replaced by cooler temperatures of about 4 C on Saturday, with warmer air returning next week, as temperatures of about 12 C are expected for Tuesday.

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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Several factors lead him to that conclusion, he said. Canadian growers ship large numbers of beans and chickpeas to the U.S., and the production and seeded-acreage numbers south of the border can greatly affect Canadian farmer prices and next year’s seeding intentions.

Chickpea production has historically been low in the U.S., he said, but this year chickpea became the most important category included in the dry bean production estimates issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this month.

That means USDA’s forecast for a 1.71 million-tonne harvest of dry edible beans and chickpeas is actually about 1.2 million tonnes, down from 1.36 million last year, once chickpeas are removed from the calculations, Clancey said.

Meanwhile, edible bean inventories are also on the rise, and currently sit at about 366,000 tonnes, he said.

“So if you think about that, if inventory is rising, that in and of itself would be a disincentive to grow beans. But the fact that when they (farmers) were making seeding decisions, chickpeas were at record-high levels for price, grower prices, it attracted a lot of farmers.”

However, since then, chickpeas have taken farmers on a roller-coaster ride posting record-high and historic–low prices, which Clancey thinks will discourage chickpea production for the growing season ahead.

“That will discourage chickpea production next year, so I expect quite a drop in chickpea area in 2019,” he said.

“It creates lots of potential that dry edible bean area will go up next year.”

Canada exports almost of its edible crop, he said, with little carryover to worry about.

USDA will break out chickpeas in a separate category in its December harvest breakdown, Clancey said.

Statistics Canada, in its September estimates, reported dry bean production at 345,300 tonnes, an increase of 7.1 per cent over 2017, which follows a 32 per cent increase in 2017 tonnage over 2016 (322,400 tonnes, up from 244,300 tonnes).

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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“As of right now, it will be tight for everybody. The thing is there’s so much still to be harvested. If they get it off it might not be the best. Some of it will be OK. Anything in the swath will be garbage (for feed),” said Tyler Palmer, a grain buyer at Emerson Milling in Emerson, Man.

Emerson is currently offering $4 per bushel for oats for April-to-May delivery.

Scott Shiels, grain procurement merchant at Grain Millers in Yorkton, Sask., said the current oat harvest looks reasonable, considering the conditions, but he said supplies through the year will likely become tighter.

“We’re not completely covered for the year yet, but I think we’re going to be OK,” he said.

Last year’s carryout of 784,000 tonnes was of very good quality but seeded acreage was down this spring and while yields are good, they will not increase at this point. “It’s going to be tighter, let’s put it that way,” he said.

Shiels said it also means farmers will likely see prices climb next year as companies get closer to bringing out new-crop pricing for the 2019-20 crop.

The industry will have to encourage more acreage to get stocks back into the plus side, he said, “because we won’t have anything in the bins when harvest rolls around next year.”

Grain Millers is currently offering $3.40 per bushel for April-to-August delivery on oats, which Shiels said is considerably higher than it has offered for a few years

It’s normal for millers in southern Manitoba to bid higher, he said, because they have to draw crop from further away.

Manitoba’s most recent crop report, dated Tuesday, stated 97 per cent of the oat crop had been harvested in that province. In Saskatchewan, which produces more oats than Manitoba and Alberta combined, the oat harvest is only 70 per cent complete, according to the latest crop report issued Thursday for the week of Oct. 2-8.

For 2018, Statistics Canada estimated Saskatchewan oat production at 1.65 million tonnes, compared to 687,000 tonnes for Manitoba and 676,200 tonnes for Alberta. Alberta’s oat crop was reported at 19.5 per cent combined as of the most recent crop report issued Oct. 2.

Shiels said the oat crop in his area is about 70 per cent harvested, and most of it missed the heavy precipitation that has since stalled operations.

However, areas of northeastern Saskatchewan, around Melfort, Tisdale and Nipawin, and southwest of Saskatoon, around Biggar and Kindersley, have been the hardest hit.

“But most of our guys have a good chunk, or in some cases even all of it, taken off.”

Quality has been good as well, even in samples from crops harvested after bad weather hit. “Which is amazing,” he said.

He attributed that to the colder weather, which has inhibited sprouting. “It’s kind of knocking on wood a lot, but it’s been a so-far, so-good situation.”

A major plus, Shiels said, was the decision many farmers made to hold off on swathing.

“They’ll lose some to shattering and breaking down and what have you, but it’s a heck of a lot better than having rain while it’s in the swath for three weeks.”

Back in Emerson, Palmer said the standing oats in his area will likely see quality losses, but it can still be good for milling even with a bit of mildew.

“But it’s definitely going to be interesting, that’s for darned sure, because the prices are sure rising up pretty fast here,” he said.

Once the supply of old crop is gone, oats could be tough to come by, he added.

More supply pressure could soon appear when U.S. buyers show up, he said. They usually come to Canada looking to supplement their supplies with higher beta-glucan oats.

With drought in Scandinavia drawing down production there, it will be difficult to find alternative sources. Australia too has been hit by drought and usually sells its oats into Asian markets.

Farmers who haven’t already sold their old crop could do well to take advantage, Palmer said.

“It depends on how lucky you are or how long you want to wait. You just never know what it can do between the old crop and new crop coming off. If some places are short, I’d be paying huge dollars.”

Though it’s early yet, Shiels said he’s been surprised by the lack of interest from U.S. millers so far, especially considering that the U.S. oat crop was “just garbage.”

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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“I really suspect that anything left in the field now, any barley now, will not be malting quality,” said Jeff Nielsen, a farmer near Olds, Alta., and director with the Alberta Barley Commission.

Nielsen said he managed to get his barley off during a brief harvest window in early September, as many others did. However, he said Wednesday, he had not been able to get into fields since Sept. 10.

Cameron Goff, a farmer near Hanley, Sask., and a director on the Saskatchewan Barley Development Commission, agrees chances are small that any barley left in fields will be good for anything but feed.

However, he said, he still holds out hope that some of the late-seeded barley still standing will be able to meet malting quality specs, provided it wasn’t hit too badly by frost.

Like Nielsen, Goff said he managed to get all of his barley taken off before the heavy precipitation hit.

“It’s a shorter-season crop and if you’re really after malt you do try and get it in because bad weather in September isn’t all that uncommon,” he said. “It can really kick malt barley more than anything else as far as downgrading.”

On the supply side, Nielsen said he thinks maltsters will be able to draw on old crop and that should get them enough to see them through.

He managed to recently sell some of his old-crop barley, he added, and thinks a fair amount of supply is still sitting in bins thanks to a large, high-quality crop last year.

“I think there is a good supply of good quality (old-crop) malt out there.”

Prices for malt barley have ranged between $5.50 and $5.60 per bushel at elevators in his area. Feed barley prices have been around $5.25 per bushel, he said, although by shopping around and calling brokers, farmers might be able to do better than prices posted at local elevators.

Goff, meanwhile, wonders if maltsters might have to stretch a bit to source supplies this winter. He said he agrees last year’s crop will help, but he doesn’t know how many farmers still have some of those stocks left. Many farmers moved old crop when it appeared that another large, good-quality harvest for barley and wheat was imminent.

He said he heard from companies about three weeks ago, looking to buy barley for fall, winter and next summer delivery and that tells him they do not have enough.

“So, I can’t see if they got that many orders on the books, if you will, they were still looking for it two to three weeks ago, I can’t see them getting them filled.”

Prices of about $5.25 per bushel were being offered, he said, but it was when many believed there was not going to be much feed around. The longer that harvest drags on under heavy precipitation, the more that situation will change.

But of five different places around his area, he said $5.25 per bushel was the best offer — $5.40 if he was willing to accept spring delivery.

This year’s long, wet harvest might have come at a bad time, just as export markets were growing. Nielsen said he hoped those buyers would not suddenly be shorted and left to find new suppliers. Foreign buyers may be able to find new opportunities within Canada to fill their needs, he added.

Some higher-protein barley grown in drier areas of the south, which was not suited for malt, may be headed that way. As well, Nielsen said, a lot of other grain, such as wheat, may yet enter the feed market.

Statistics Canada estimated Alberta farmers would grow 4.042 million tonnes of barley in 2018. Saskatchewan farmers were tapped to grow 3.237 million, Manitoba farmers 492,900 and Canadian farmers overall were expected to harvest 8.227 million tonnes this year.

According to the latest crop report, for conditions as of Oct. 2, the Alberta barley crop was 45.7 per cent harvested. That accounts for 82 per cent completed in the south, 41.5 per cent in central regions, 14.4 per cent in the northeast, 17.2 per cent in the northwest and 29.3 per cent in the Peace district.

Saskatchewan’s barley harvest overall was reported as 81 per cent complete in the latest crop report as of Oct. 8; Manitoba’s barley crop was estimated at 97 per cent harvested in the Oct. 9 crop report.

The latest Statistics Canada stocks report, released in September, stated 1.256 million tonnes were still on hand, but it did not break out how much of that was planned for malt.

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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That’s why lenders such as Farm Credit Canada, who show they understand the needs of producers who are dependent on commodity markets, are appreciated, said George Matheson, a hog producer at Stonewall, Man., about 35 km north of Winnipeg.

“It’s good to see the support like that from the lending community — that they’re sensitive to the situation that hog producers are in,” he said.

Although hog prices have recovered somewhat recently, he said many operators are still a long way from being able to generate profits.

He said he shipped a load of 100 hogs during the last two weeks and considered it a big win to get break-even prices.

“But two to three weeks ago, I was looking at probably losing in the neighbourhood of probably $35 per hog.”

He said he’s not sure what’s sparking the recent rebound, but doubts it is a long-term phenomenon, with a huge oversupply situation in the United States.

To help alleviate financial stress, FCC announced Tuesday it will offer more lenient repayment terms on loans for hog producers caught up in the recent price crash, caused by international trade disputes.

Barry Watson, FCC’s acting senior vice-president for the Prairie region, said the federal ag lender would work with hog producers facing financial difficulties to come up with solutions. That could mean deferred principal payments or adjustments to loan repayment schedules.

Oversupply in the U.S. has caused drastic and abrupt hog price declines in Canada, he said. Canada bases its hog prices on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

“In Canada here, it has probably had a 30 per cent negative impact on our pork prices, at least in the recent past and it’s likely that the months ahead are going to be tougher slogging as well,” said Watson.

To explain the reasons behind the skid in hog prices, one needs to look at protectionist policies in the U.S., which led to both China and Mexico applying tariffs to U.S. pork, in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on their goods.

China has levied a 62 per cent tariff on American pork; Mexico has applied a 20 per cent tariff. Those tariffs have significantly curtailed U.S. pork exports, even as U.S. producers show no signs of reducing production.

Matheson admitted he’s unsure about the technical reasons behind the market’s sudden resurgence, albeit temporary, but added that sometimes reason has nothing to do with it.

“I wonder if fear of African Swine fever is putting some emotion into the equation. I’m not sure.”

ASF has been spreading through China, where 29 outbreaks have been reported since Aug. 3, leading to almost 40,000 animals being culled.

The disease recently has spread to Western Europe, where it was found in Belgium. As of Sept. 25, eight cases were confirmed there.

Worldwide, ASF has infected more than 360,000 pigs and wild boars in 2018, counting only those that have been reported to the World Organization for Animal Health. It is believed to have been transmitted to Eurasia from Africa in 2007.

The disease can kill infected animals within 10 days. Once it is detected on a farm, the entire pig herd on that farm must be destroyed. It is not, however, a human-health risk.

Whatever the cause of the turnaround in prices, Matheson said it helps. “I’m not quite sure myself what the cause of that rebound is, but we’re glad to see it.”

His recent hog shipment earned him an average of $157 per animal, he said. “So it’s not great, but considering the time of year and what was forecast at one time, I’ll take it, that’s for sure.”

But the price still falls short of where he thinks producers need to be to earn a reasonable living. “Considering inflation in this day and age, I would say if a producer could average $200 (over a year) for a hog, considering feed costs, labour costs, construction costs, I think most producers would say they could live on that.

“But we’re a long ways below that.”

FCC’s Watson said the key is for struggling producers in any sector to reach out to their lending institutions to explore possible assistance.

He also noted risk management tools producers can use to their advantage; forward contracts and hedging programs, for example, can smooth out bumps in the market.

FCC is also monitoring the current grain situation, he said. Untimely harvest precipitation has delayed harvest across large parts of the Prairies, especially in central and northern areas of the grain belt. But at least for now, there is still time for farmers to get the crop in, he said.

Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay’s office said in an emailed response that the federal government wants to reassure farmers that programs exist to help them manage the potential impacts caused by current low prices.

Farmers can draw on AgriInvest account balances, and those enrolled in AgriStability may qualify for support under that program.

AgriStability offers assistance for income losses of at least 30 per cent from a producer’s historical reference margin. Up to 70 per cent of losses greater than 30 per cent are covered.

As well, cash advances of up to $400,000 are available through the Advance Payments Program. The first $100,000 is interest-free, MacAulay’s office stated.

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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