“Our government promised farmers we would continue to expand and enhance RMP, and with this historic investment, we have delivered,” said Rob Flack, minister of Agriculture Food and Agribusiness at VanQuaethem Farms Ltd. in Eden, Ont., January 28.

Why it matters: The increase will support farmers responding to market challenges while boosting confidence and competitiveness.

The increase will be phased in over three years, with $30 million added in the 2025 program year until the program reaches a total of $250 million in the 2027 program year, with producer premiums remaining at 35 per cent of government funding. It builds on reforms allowing unused program funds to be rolled over for future years’ claims, the $50 million annual increase to RMP in 2020 and AgriStability’s increase from 70 to 80 per cent compensation rates in 2023, making the program more responsive in times of need.

Ontario Minister of Finance Peter Bethlenfalvy said the government must protect farmers against economic uncertainty and support the hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity the sector generates.

“It will also help ensure the continued growth of Ontario’s thriving agri-food sector for generations,” he said.

Commodities who have lobbied extensively for the RMP increase saw the announcement, made hours before an expected early provincial election call, as a hard-fought win.

“(The RMP investment) could not come at a better time, given the uncertainty and escalating risks facing farm operations,” said Craig McLaughlin, president of Beef Farmers of Ontario. “This is, without a doubt, the most important investment the province could make for our sector and one that will serve to support the security of Ontario farms and Ontario food production for many years.”

Ontario Sheep Farmers chair Art Alblas said the impact of RMP investment in the sheep industry is evident.

“Lamb production enrolled in this program has doubled since 2020 and continues to increase,” Alblas said. “(This investment) will support current and new sheep farmers as we expand production to meet the growing demand for lamb in Ontario.”

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Nearly 800,000 tonnes of grain moved through the port on the northern shores of Lake Superior in November, bringing the year-to-date total to 6.818 million tonnes, according to a report. That compares with 6.027 million tonnes at the same point a year ago and comes in about 500,000 tonnes above the five-year average for grain movement.

Potash shipments were running at their strongest level in 40 years, with 259,385 tonnes shipped in November. That brought the year-to-date total to 1.676 million tonnes up 11 per cent from 2023.

A total of 432 vessels have visited the port this year, which compares with 388 a year ago. There were 169 foreign ocean going ‘salties’ through November, up from 151 at the same time last year.

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The company owes $5.067 million to the 181 creditors listed in bankruptcy filings released Nov. 26. Many of the creditors are farmers who sold grain through Agfinity but were never paid. Employees out their last paycheques are also listed in the filing. Listed assets totalled $162,593.

MNP Ltd. has been appointed as the Licensed Insolvency Trustee. Creditors can contact MNP to complete a proof of claim prior to a meeting of creditors scheduled to take place via teleconference on Dec. 16. The meeting is a formality in the bankruptcy process, with the purpose of affirming the trustee’s appointment, appointing inspectors to the bankrupt estate and providing direction to the trustee.

While Agfinity had once operated as a typical grain broker — matching buyers and sellers through broker notes but never handling any money directly aside from their fee — in recent years the company began using grain purchase contracts where they took the payment from the buyer and paid the seller later. In a July blog post, Agfinity’s president Joseph Billett said the newer contracts were necessary to support cash flow due to narrow margins. However, the company was unable to generate enough trade volumes to match costs.

In a draft letter to be sent to creditors provided by Billett, he acknowledged mistakes made over the past year and offered “sincerest apologies for the pain and stress this situation has caused.”

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Russia, the world’s top wheat exporter, has officially forecast this year’s grain harvest at 132 million metric tons, an 11 per cent drop from 148 million tonnes in 2023 and a 16 per cent drop from a record 158 million tonnes in 2022.

However, after bad weather, ranging from early spring frosts to drought and rain, hit many grain-producing regions, the forecast is set for a downward revision. The IKAR consultancy sees this year’s grain harvest at 124.5 million tonnes.

Concerns over Russia’s smaller-than-expected grain harvest supported international prices in recent months, with wheat reaching four-months high last week.

“We are currently calculating the figures, taking into account the bad weather in Siberia,” Lut was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying.

“And on the other hand, unfortunately, considering the inability to harvest crops in regions where a counter-terrorist operation regime has been introduced,” Lut added in a first public acknowledgment of the war’s impact on the harvest.

Russia introduced the regime in Kursk, as well as neighbouring Bryansk and Belgorod regions, following a major Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region, Russia’s seventh-largest grain-producing region, on Aug. 6.

Both Belgorod and Bryansk regions, major grain-producing areas, have become targets of regular attacks by Ukraine’s military. Ukrainian forces still control a large swathe of the Kursk region.

Kursk Governor Alexei Smirnov said in September that after the attack, the harvesting of grains could not be completed on an area of 160,000 hectares. He estimated the damage from the attack at almost $1 billion.

Lut said the final estimate for this year’s harvest will be announced on Oct. 10. Sovecon consultancy earlier estimated that as of Oct.1, Russian farmers had harvested 111 million tonnes of grain.

Lut also said that winter crops sowing in many regions was difficult because of the continued drought. Sovecon consultancy said that no rains were expected in winter grain sowing areas until mid-October.

“The sowing is going very hard. We plan to sow 20 million hectares, as we did last year. But we are practically sowing in sand,” Interfax news agency quoted Lut as saying.

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Below-average rainfall – even through the rainy season – has plagued the Amazon and much of South America since last year, also feeding the worst wildfires in more than a decade in Brazil and Bolivia. Researchers say climate change is the main culprit.

Scientists predict the Amazon region may not fully recover moisture levels until 2026.

Last year, the drought became a humanitarian crisis, as people reliant on rivers were stranded without food, water or medicine.

This year authorities are already on alert. In hard-hit Amazonas state, at least 62 municipalities are under states of emergency with more than half a million people affected, according to the state’s civil defense corps.

“This is now the most severe drought in over 120 years of measurement at the Port of Manaus,” said Valmir Mendonca, the port’s head of operations, who said the river level is likely to keep falling for another week or two.

With the region never fully recovering due to weaker-than-usual seasonal rains, many of the impacts of the drought last year look set to repeat or reach new extremes.

The Port of Manaus measured the Rio Negro river at 12.66 meters on Friday, according to its website, surpassing the previous all-time low recorded last year and still falling rapidly.

The Rio Negro is a major tributary of the Amazon River, the world’s largest river by volume. The port sits near the “meeting of the waters” where the black water of the Negro meets the sandy-colored Solimoes, which also hit a record low this week.

Grain shipments have been halted on the Madeira River, another tributary of the Amazon, because of low water levels, a port association said last month.

Researchers are once again finding the carcasses of Amazon freshwater river dolphins, which they blame on thinning waters driving the threatened species into closer contact with humans.

National disaster monitoring agency Cemaden has already called the drought Brazil’s worst such event since at least the 1950s.

The drought has also sapped hydropower plants, Brazil’s main source of electricity. Energy authorities have approved bringing back daylight savings time to conserve electricity, although the measure still requires presidential approval.

The extreme weather and dryness is affecting much of South America, with the Paraguay River also at an all-time low. That river starts in Brazil and flows through Paraguay and Argentina to the Atlantic.

The same extreme heat and dryness is helping drive surging fires in the Amazon and neighboring Pantanal, the world’s largest wetlands. Bolivia is also on track to break a record for most fires ever recorded, according to data from Brazil’s space research agency.

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“These upgrades reflect our ongoing commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction,” said Troy Tate, Brantford location manager. “We want our growers to be in, out and back in their combines as seamlessly as possible.”

Why it matters: As a family-owned independent company, Snobelen specializes in the production, processing and sales of food-grade soybeans, commercial grains, and pedigreed seeds for national and international markets.

The facility’s new commercial receiving pit, drag and elevator system has a 16,000-bushel takeaway capacity, two-and-a-half times faster than the old system.

The new downspouts allow all wet grain storage tanks to fill at total capacity. The new grain handling equipment is tied into the existing automated system to ensure a smooth grain flow throughout the facility.

The second commercial receiving pit and elevator underwent a complete overhaul, incorporating a fully automated turn head and new downspouts to enhance takeaway speed and efficiency.

Tate said the new equipment and increased capacity will reduce wait times and allow growers to customize delivery scheduling to fit their specific needs.

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LDC, one of the world’s largest crop traders and processors whose competitors include ADM, Bunge and Cargill, said its core earnings (EBITDA) were $1.057 billion (C$1.434 billion) in the first six months of 2024, against $1.169 billion (C$1.586 billion) a year earlier.

Net sales fell to $25.6 billion (C$34.7 billion) from $25.8 billion (C$34.0 billion) but shipped volumes rose 19.4 per cent, LDC said in a statement.

“Our diverse and global business activities allowed us to deliver strong results … as an overall recovery in crop sizes and ample stocks globally put pressure on prices and resulted in less volatile market dynamics,” said CEO Michael Gelchie.

Global prices of corn, wheat and soybeans have slipped to their lowest since 2020 amid rising supplies and signs of slowing demand from China, a turnaround from surging prices two years ago after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

ADM and Bunge both posted lower than expected second-quarter profits in July, reflecting leaner margins for oilseed crushing.

LDC also cited weaker processing margins in North America and slow farmer selling in Brazil.

Operating profits fell at LDC’s grain and oilseeds business and also at its cotton business, in the face of slow global demand, and at its sugar unit as volumes fell, it said.

LDC said profits improved for its coffee business due to higher volumes and better origination margins, particularly in Brazil, adding it had successfully hedged risk during volatility linked to crop setbacks and Red Sea shipping disruption.

It did not give an outlook for its full-year.

LDC has partly shifted its focus towards the consumer end of the food chain to become less reliant on commodity trading. It has launched its own juice brand and established a pulses unit to support expansion into plant-based protein products.

The group, privately controlled by Margarita Louis-Dreyfus via family trust Akira, said it paid a $507 million dividend to shareholders during the first half.

—Reporting for Reuters by Gus Trompiz and Tassilo Hummel

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Mike Ondrejicka, owner of OEL, said the company took possession of the site Aug. 1 and will spend the next few weeks developing an integration plan for their operation.

The facility expands on OEL’s current six-million-bushel storage capacity and 100,000 bu./hour receiving capabilities, which are split between its Exeter and Lucan operations.

The privately owned grain elevator company employs 20 full and part-time workers and handles corn, soybeans and wheat.

Under P&H Ltd., the Centralia Grain Elevator and Crop Input site provided a pre-seed to final shipment service, including a full line of seed, fertilizer and crop protection products and a custom application business covering producers within a 50-kilometre radius.

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The severe to exceptional drought choking the lower Mississippi River valley is expected to improve this winter as the El Nino weather pattern brings better rains to the region, NOAA said in its U.S. winter weather outlook.

But lingering drought in the upper Midwest and forecasts for normal to below-normal precipitation across basins that supply tributaries such as the Illinois and Ohio rivers could slow the Mississippi River’s recovery.

Low water has slowed export-bound barge shipments of grain from the Midwest farm belt for a second straight year during the busy fall harvest season, making U.S. exports of corn and soybeans less competitive in the world market.

“We are expecting improving drought conditions for the lower to middle Mississippi Valley during the next few months. But for the hydrological impacts such as low river levels and low ground water levels, that will be a little slower to recover,” said Brad Pugh, operational drought lead with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

“The hydrological impacts could linger beyond the end of January,” he said.

The Mississippi River fell to an all-time low on Monday at the Memphis, Tenn. river gauge, eclipsing the previous low water record set nearly a year ago, according to National Weather Service data.

Shallow river conditions prompted barge shippers to restrict the amount of grain they haul to avoid getting stuck in the drought-parched waterway.

Still, areas of the lower Mississippi River have been closed to navigation at times over the past several weeks following vessel groundings or as U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews dredged low spots to deepen the channel.

— Karl Plume reports on agriculture and ag commodities for Reuters from Chicago.

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James O’Brien, head of the State Department Office of Sanctions Coordination, said leaders at the U.N. General Assembly this week discussed efforts to revive the deal, which Russia abandoned in July.

Western countries have accused Russia of using food as a weapon of war by quitting the Black Sea deal, which had helped bring down global food prices, and then carrying out repeated air strikes on Ukrainian ports and grain stores.

“A couple of factors are going to… affect their calculation. One is that their leverage will decline. Ukraine’s already now had a few ships leave and stay in territorial waters,” O’Brien said of Moscow’s thinking on the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

He said the second factor was that Russia’s pricing would be hurt by its attacks on Ukrainian ships, which leads to insurers raising rates and Moscow’s costs going up.

“Over the next several weeks, I think the factors that led Russia to believe it would benefit from withdrawing are going to change.”

Russia quit the grain deal, brokered by the U.N. and Turkey in 2022, saying that its own food and fertilizer exports, while not subject to Western sanctions, faced obstacles and that not enough Ukrainian grain was going to countries in need.

Ukrainian ports across the Danube River have since become a vital export corridor for Ukrainian grain, and Russia has targeted the route with regular air strikes.

Ukraine last month announced a “humanitarian corridor” to release ships trapped in its ports and to circumvent a de facto blockade.

— Reporting for Reuters by Daphne Psaledakis, Humeyra Pamuk and Michelle Nichols.

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