Telling the story about modern farm practices
Graphic artist documents ‘Prairie sentinels’
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As storm clouds gather, farmers urged to batten down the hatches Experts say current grain prices are normal, knowing your cost of production critical, and hope is not a marketing strategy By Alexis Kienlen and Glenn Cheater af staff/ edmonton
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t was standing room only at every FarmTech market outlook session, and the faces told the tale: anxious-looking producers leaning forward, hanging on every word, searching for rays of hope as the storm clouds roll in. But the message was blunt — there will be no quick bounce-back from the steep fall in grain and oilseed prices. “This is normal,” said Errol Anderson, a commodity broker and president of ProMarket Communications. “You say, ‘I’m getting taken to the cleaners’ — and you are. But markets are savage.” It was the same ‘face the facts’ message at the presentations by FarmLink Marketing Solutions. “If you’ve only been farming for a few years, that’s horrifying,” said Brenda Tjaden Lepp, chief analyst and co-founder of the Winnipegbased company. “But most of us realize that’s just the way it goes... for the most part, that’s how farming has always been.” Her message was no surprise for Lee Markert, who grows wheat, barley, peas and oats for seed on
his pedigreed seed farm north of Vulcan, as well as commercial crops such as canola. “I had an idea going in what I was going to hear and it was pretty much what I heard,” he said. “We’ve got quite a challenge
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ahead of us in getting all this grain moved.” Markert counts himself lucky on some fronts. Although he grew more commercial grain than normal last year, he was able to contract some canola in the fall. He
expects to move some in March and some by July. “We’ve been quite fortunate that deliveries on the canola side have been pretty well up to date,” he said. An open-market supporter,
Markert turned to the CWB’s pool to sell his low-protein hard red spring wheat. It graded No. 1, and will be delivered by end of July. “Our cash flow is tightened a little bit,” he said. “In that case, we were at the mercy of the market. We didn’t have what the market wanted, so this is our best option for a net return.” It’s a fiscal juggling act that will stretch out for this growing season and likely far beyond. But Markert says he knows farmers who are in dire need of cash to pay the bills, noting the Canadian Canola Growers Association has been pushing record numbers of cash advances while Farm Credit Canada is offering advances of up to $400,000 (with the first $100,000 interest free). “From the cash flow side of things, we are in OK shape,” said Markert. “We had opportunity to take advantage of a bit of a basis premium locally here and we moved a little bit of canola just this last week. That will give us a little bit of cash flow, and we’ll move a little more in March and that will help us get the crop in.” The message from the marketing experts at FarmTech was to be nimble and take advantage of selling opportunities.
see GRAIN PRICES } page 6
Alberta pork producers on alert } PAGE 10
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