While nitrogen fertilizer and diesel fuel are the big-ticket items getting the most attention, the cost increases will extend much further.

Farmers are considering various strategies to minimize the economic damage for this year and the years to come.

Fortunately, farmers in Western Canada had most of their nitrogen fertilizer locked in ahead of the dramatic escalation caused by the war in the Middle East. What isn’t widely appreciated is the war’s impact on other fertilizer types, including phosphate.

Breaking down fertilizer impacts

Mario Gaudet, a senior account manager with Alberta-based BiziSul, which supplies elemental sulfur, used a recent webinar hosted by Dan Aberhart to explain the sources of sulfur and the role it plays in all sorts of manufactured products.

Sulfur is a byproduct of oil refining, which accounts for 80 per cent of the world supply. About 40 per cent comes from the Middle East, and, like nitrogen, was blocked for weeks at the Strait of Hormuz.

Gaudet says that over the last year-and-a-half, the price of elemental sulfur has increased from US$70 per tonne to around $580.

Sulfur is needed to produce sulfuric acid used in battery production as well as the refining of lithium and many other metals. Sulfuric acid is also a necessary ingredient to turn phosphate rock into phosphate fertilizer.

Monoammonium phosphate, 11-52-0, was already expensive and hasn’t escalated like nitrogen. However, with the high cost of sulfur and the high cost of the nitrogen component in the fertilizer, it’s difficult to imagine MAP prices coming down anytime soon.

Nitrogen strategies

What should the strategy be next summer and fall if the price of urea is still $1,000 or more per tonne? Should you plan to stock up for 2027? Will the ceasefire hold? Will fertilizer manufacturing and distribution be catching up?

Nitrogen is usually less expensive in the summer and fall.

While nitrogen stabilizers cost money, more producers might now consider using a stabilizer and spreading fertilizer in the fall.

The cost of a stabilizer is often relatively small compared to the usual price increase ahead of spring. Applying in the fall also means you don’t have to store the product.

While producers are used to pricing fertilizer in advance of seeding and most have a significant amount of on-farm storage, diesel storage is a mixed bag.

Some producers have significant storage and try to time purchases to save money. Others just get regular bulk deliveries as needed.

While nitrogen tends to follow a predictable price pattern most years, diesel fuel would seem to be more erratic.

However, following the onset of the war, a spike in prices would have been a reasonable expectation. Those with the storage to stock up saved a lot of money.

Another advantage to having extensive diesel fuel storage is the ability to obtain a lower price for taking an entire tanker load at a time. Of course, buying a large amount at the wrong time would lock in an even-larger loss.

The high cost of petroleum will manifest itself in the prices for crop protection products.

Yes, many chemistries are off patent and generics have decreased price levels, but it’s now more expensive to manufacture all petroleum-based products. Even the plastic jugs cost more. Buying in advance was a good strategy.

With the high input costs and outlook for compressed margins, producers are unlikely to be bullish on equipment upgrades. That’s one area where they can exercise more discretion.

Kevin Hursh is an agricultural journalist, consultant and farmer. He can be reached by email at kevin@hursh.ca.

The post Farmers look to bust higher input costs appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Almost all agricultural commodities are facing existential threats. War has triggered supply chain disruptions and is pushing up input costs. Trade within North America is suddenly uncertain. Protectionism is on the rise around the world, with Chinese tariffs on pork and Europe’s non-tariff trade barriers being two leading examples.

Pulling in the same direction

Agriculture should be taking a “whole plate” approach to addressing these issues and not trying to fix things one commodity at a time. If the industry can step out of commodity silos and regional perspectives, we can not only address these threats, but realize the vision of making Canada a global food powerhouse.

There are positive steps in this direction, but no standard practice. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has brought together a coalition under the banner “Let’s Grow Canada” to support policies that will encourage investment in research and development. CropLife Canada’s “Grow Canada Strong” initiative has similar objectives. Farm Credit Canada has launched a “Let’s Grow Canada” website with the intent of showcasing the stories behind Canadian farmers and food producers.

Canada currently ranks last in ag research investment among the top seven countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This must change if we are to weather the geopolitical storms the country is facing. Canada is at an inflection point where agriculture has an opportunity to present governments with a vision for attracting private sector research and development investment rather than just waiting for public sector solutions.

A united front on CUSMA

The review of our most important trade agreement, CUSMA, is underway. The implications for Canadian agriculture are massive. The aggressive shift in U.S. foreign and trade policies over the past years, coming from both political parties, clearly show us that the renegotiation will be difficult.

All of export agriculture needs to come together to develop a strategic plan on how we approach these negotiations. We need to be prepared to deliver real-time advice to our negotiating team that is consistent and united. We need to be prepared to tell our governments things they might not want to hear. We need to have systematic outreach to our partners in the U.S. commodity groups, who cannot afford to “go it alone” and hope for positive outcomes.

Developing this united front requires leaders who are willing to take some risks and step outside of the comfort zone that operating in commodity and regional silos offer.

Immigration: an agriculture solution

Labour is another key policy issue that requires a common front if Canada is to become an international food powerhouse. Almost all sectors of agriculture face labour shortages. New Canadians are an integral part of meeting these needs. Immigration policies in Canada are being questioned due to housing and service shortages in our major cities, but what is needed in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal is not what is needed in rural Canada and at our processing plants.

Agriculture needs a unified voice to tell the story about how stable jobs for new Canadians in agriculture and food production are building communities across the country. Rather than short soundbites from political leaders, we need thoughtful immigration and labour policies targeting regional, and sectoral, needs.

The Canadian economy is facing undeniable threats due to geopolitical instability and rising protectionism. Agriculture and food production in Canada can be key in mitigating these threats. To seize the opportunity, we need to present governments with united and consistent policy solutions. Agriculture needs to lead the way rather than wait for others to present solutions to us.

The post OPINION: Agriculture needs to lead its own solutions appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Fertilizer Canada has been tracking farmers’ uptake of 4R Nutrient Stewardship since 2014. Most farmers are by now aware of this set of management principles that can be tailored at the farm level: right source, right rate, right timing and right placement.

While 64 per cent of the survey respondents believe they are compliant with 4R strategies, the reality suggests differently, the report noted.

Nearly 80 per cent have no formal plan in place. That doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t using some 4R tactics, but it is an indicator of general buy in. As well, based on what survey respondents reported, only about 28 per cent or 13 million acres across Canada currently meet the 4R criteria.

Industry observers have also cautioned that practices, such as broadcasting using stabilized urea, may meet the 4R criteria, but still result in overuse.

Why high prices might succeed where advocacy hasn’t

Ironically, the cost-price squeeze of fertilizer might help accomplish what environmental and climate change lobbyists have been advocating for years when it comes to crop fertility management. Current economics may drive adoption of different technologies, both new and old, to improve how efficiently farmers feed their crops. If they get it right, farmers save money, still hit target yields and reduce how much fertilizer is lost to the environment through leaching into waterways or to greenhouse gas emissions.

That said, 4R isn’t automatically a slam dunk. The potential rewards from more refined nutrient management are far from the current reality.

There are a host of practical reasons for this outlined in the Fertilizer Canada report. Some of it, though, stems from the growing disconnect between farmers and the rest of society.

The so-called “best management practices” underpinning the 4R approach have evolved over the past four decades as understanding of soil fertility dynamics has grown and new technologies such as soil mapping and variable-rate application have matured.

However, the underlying production politics have changed too.

In the 1970s and 80s, the message was about “feeding the world.” Focus was on high-yield agriculture, at almost any cost. In the 1990s, we entered the “save the planet” era. Focus shifted to reducing negative effects of modern agriculture on the environment. Issues such as nutrient loading in Lake Winnipeg shifted more to the fore.

Lately, it’s been the climate change agenda driving the push for better nutrient management. The early best management practices were reorganized around the 4R approach partly as a strategy to demonstrate how the industry can voluntarily curtail greenhouse gas emissions before regulators feel the need to move in.

Why farmers aren’t buying the sustainability pitch

Societal efforts to frame environmental stewardship as farmers’ obligation have met with an indignant response from the farming community, so much so that “sustainability” has become a dirty word in some circles. Net zero? Not a chance.

Of course, farmers care about the environment. The cold hard truth though is that, while protecting the soil and water or fending off climate change are laudable long-term goals, they are impractical if they hurt the bottom line.

In the survey, respondents cited lack of equipment, cost, education and time as the main reasons for the slow pace of adoption of 4R overall.

There was also another factor though, and it’s a biggie.

“In Western Canada, a lack of proven benefits was also stated as a barrier to adoption,” the survey report says.

Much of the research focus surrounding these principles has been measuring how well they achieve environmental sustainability goals. Research into whether they make more money for farmers and how has been scant and inconclusive.

The soil testing gap

The survey says that the biggest barrier to achieving the first tier in the 4R-compliance process is the “right rate,” because growers are not setting field-specific nitrogen rates.

That’s unsurprising, considering only about 25 per cent of farmers annually test their soils for nitrogen and phosphorus reserves. About 55 per cent test every one to three years. But there are about one-quarter of producers who test less often than four or five years, or not at all.

A high proportion of the fertilizer used in Western Canada is still applied using generic recommendations and “guesstimates” of crop uptake. How much of the applied nutrients reach the crop and how much gets lost remains a mystery on many farms. Farmers have historically compensated by over applying, which worked — at least for the farmer — when fertilizer was relatively cheap.

To be fair, even die-hard advocates say soil test results are best used as a reference rather than a prescription. However, annual sampling does offer insights into what’s going on below the surface. If it saves a few pounds of fertilizer, it pays for itself, plus it forms an important data point that feeds other decisions that could pay even bigger dividends.

A price signal farmers can’t ignore

With fertilizer prices now soaring alongside those drones criss-crossing the Middle East, now would be a good time to review the assumptions driving your on-farm nutrient management.

The post OPINION: Fertilizer price highs come with hard efficiency lessons appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The relentless marketing, alternately promoting weight loss drugs and foods that lean toward making us fat, wasn’t aimed at the elite athletes strutting their stuff on the world stage. It’s a safe bet they didn’t achieve the peak of human fitness on a diet of pizza and french fries. It’s equally doubtful they require injections of the GLP-1 class of drugs to manage their weight.

Nope, those commercials are aimed at the couch potatoes back home, subjecting us to both temptation and a shortcut to redemption as we bear witness to these feats of human endurance.

These athletes deserve our admiration and respect, but to be fair to the rest of us, most working stiffs don’t have the time, the drive or the resources to devote full-time to the pursuit of extreme fitness.

So we’re left swinging between food-culture extremes, the effects of which filter back through the food chain to the farm. Consider for a moment how the food industry is twisting itself into a pretzel trying to understand how these drugs will affect consumer demand.

Firstly, these products reduce appetites, which means people eat less — so much so that it’s more difficult for them to meet their nutritional needs. It’s also now known that one of the unintended consequences of rapid weight loss is a loss of muscle.

Lately, the focus has shifted to how to support consumers in their post-GLP-1 phase as users move away from the drugs due to factors such as costs or side effects. Recent studies are indicating the weight they lost bounces back four times faster than weight lost through traditional diet and exercise.

That has shifted attention to creating low-calorie, nutrient-dense foods, with a particular emphasis on protein.

How does this affect farmers’ bottom line? Some analysts have pointed to the protein craze as one reason record-high beef prices haven’t had the same dampening effect on demand that they might have in the past.

It’s also creating some longer-term shifts in pricing and production.

A recent Farm Credit Canada analysis outlined how this plays out for dairy farmers, to cite one example. A decade ago, they were told they needed to produce milk with a higher proportion of butterfat, which led to shifts in pricing, genetics and feeding strategies to accommodate.

Now, demand is tipping back to protein, leading marketing boards to once again adjust pricing formulas to incentivise a higher ratio of protein in the milk supply. Change comes at a cost, and those costs eventually find their way into the price of food.

“Does this protein craze have staying power? It will take years and successive generations of breeding to shift the herd towards higher-protein-lower butterfat-producing animals,” FCC economist Graeme Crosbie asked in his article.

That’s a good question. Looking back over the countless extreme approaches grabbing headlines in recent generations — the Atkins Diet, keto, low-fat, high-fat, cabbage, carnivore, meatless, vegan, California, intermittent fasting, anti-ultra processed — to name a few — many have caused food-sector pivots, but ultimately, most had limited staying power.

Remember the Atkins Diet of the early 2000s? Industry statistics show that at its peak, pasta consumption dropped eight per cent and bread by up to 40 per cent.

Meanwhile, food manufacturers responded with a major investment in hundreds of low-carb food products, many of which flourished only briefly.

The jury is still out on the plant-based protein craze, touted as healthier for people and the planet. However, many of the early plant-based products are languishing in the marketplace because of their high cost and blah taste. That industry is reportedly regrouping in a bid to up the flavour profile and rebalance costs.

There are already signs that the GLP-1 drugs are losing their shine. They no doubt still have a place but many are discovering they aren’t the panacea those advertisements make them out to be.

Farmers busy with the day-to-day business of growing food ingredients can’t afford to farm the fads. But it’s still wise to monitor these changing consumer behaviours to find the common threads — such as protein, nutrition and a move away from ultra-processed foods.

Understanding how the middle ground between the different extremes might be shifting gives farmers the upper hand when making strategic investments in their operations.

The post Producers must tread carefully when food fads come calling appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The cumulative value of those outstanding shares determines the overall value or market capitalization of a company. Of course, those numbers change daily as share prices rise and fall with normal market fluctuations.

Those fluctuations are the result of profits each company reports and the outlook on their future fortunes along with the condition of the overall economy.

Stock markets slide as war upends global trade

In recent days, however, there is another consideration to factor into those market trends: the war in Iran. That gambit, initiated by the Trump administration and Israel’s leadership, has roiled markets around the world.

The U.S. Dow Jones had been riding pretty high despite a global economy upended by U.S. tariff policy.

The Dow had reached a yearly high average on Feb. 10 of more than 50,000. However, the Middle East war cratered it, causing the average to drop to slightly more than 46,000 by March 25. Almost every other market around the world saw significant declines as well.

At the same time, oil prices have reached higher than US$100 per barrel as global supply is choked down by roughly 20 per cent due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, impacting urea fertilizer prices as well.

Iran war strikes at agriculture

All of this has affected the input costs farmers will face this year, but it has also had a negative impact on the market value of farm machinery manufacturers.

As their profitability and share prices were starting to rise from a low point in the cyclical equipment demand cycle, the stock market declines have caused significant reductions in the valuation of those companies.

Here’s a look at just how much the market capitalization of those brands had fallen from mid-February to late March:

John Deere shares peaked just before the war on Feb. 24 at US$664. By March 25, those share values had dropped $82. With about 270.1 million shares outstanding, that represents a market capitalization loss of roughly $22 billion.

Agco shares peaked Feb. 13, and by March 25 had seen a $1.7 billion valuation reduction.

CNH Industrial, parent company of Case IH and New Holland, realized a $2.5 billion decline. In the automotive sector, the story is the same. For example, Ford saw its market value decline by more than $8 billion.

The situation is the same for nearly all publicly traded companies listed on many different stock exchanges around the world, meaning globally, companies collectively have probably lost trillions of dollars in market value, at least temporarily.

Financial market fallout

At the same time, financial analysts are sounding the alarm over the possibility of insider trading on the U.S. stock market related to government announcements, with unusual trading patterns observed that could have netted millions for unidentified entities just minutes before a White House announcement.

More than a few analysts are now questioning the integrity of the U.S. stock market as a result. Since the current administration took office, the ability of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to prosecute violations has reportedly been significantly reduced.

This comes at a time when foreign investment in U.S. government treasury bonds is declining, reportedly due to a lack of confidence in the administration. Those bonds help finance the government’s deficit. Without continued investment, the U.S. treasury will find itself in a bind.

Add to that the recent increase in global oil trades conducted in yuan, rather than the standard U.S. dollar transaction, which came to be known as the petro-dollar.

The so-called petro-dollar has helped prop up demand for U.S. currency for decades. That has been an economic boon for the United States, but the continued decline in U.S.-dollar oil transactions would lead to significantly reduced demand for greenbacks.

As a lack of confidence in the U.S. among investors, trading partners and allies grows, there could be a very rocky road ahead for the U.S. economy, and the valuations of U.S.-based corporations could continue to take a beating.

The post Farm equipment makers caught in war-driven stock market shockwave appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Granted, if they had the forethought and storage capacity to buy fertilizer in the fall or top up their farm fuel reserves, they’re not taking mortal financial blows right before seeding — but with every new gas field struck, fertilizer plant shuttered or country shutting down fertilizer exports to protect their slice of the global pie, it seems less likely that supply chains will get back to status quo anytime soon.

According to an FCC web post, released in early March and recently cited by our reporter Miranda Leybourne, a 2022 study suggested about half of Prairie farmers have their fertilizer by late March. That’s more than in Eastern Canada (only 10 per cent of Ontario farmers had done the same), but it still leaves a lot of producers potentially eating big bills this spring.

Cycle of uncertainty for farmers

As our executive editor Laura Rance noted a few weeks ago, this kind of chaos has become all too familiar.

COVID-19 threw international supply chains into a blender. Inflation has ballooned far more for farmers than even other Canadians. Manitoba Agriculture staff puts the farm inflation rate in the last five years at up to 50 per cent. Canada picked another fight with China, and canola took the brunt. Then there’s the second era of Donald Trump, whose policies have helped throw more uncertainty and market volatility into the mix than the world has seen in decades.

Farmers have become unfortunately used to waking up one morning to find their market gone or input prices spiking due to events impossible to anticipate and which often have nothing to do with them.

A system can only take so much before people start looking for alternatives. If farmers are shopping for innovations though, they’re going to have to wrestle with the reality that many of those technologies have the word “sustainable” associated with them.

That’s the tone of society; and it’s often the buzzword that attracts either public or private investment enough to get those ag tech concepts over the finish line.

Many farmers resent the “green” mandates being imposed upon them by government and public pressure. The federal goal to reduce fertilizer emissions by 30 per cent under 2020 levels by the end of the decade is a prime example.

Farmers’ were first and foremost worried that it would turn into a hard limit on nitrogen fertilizer use. The federal government has always denied that, saying that it’s going to be more about encouraging efficiencies.

If urea futures are going to start spiking 30 per cent though (as they did within two days of the intensified conflict in Iran), maybe less natural gas derived fertilizer isn’t a bad thing.

A case for self-sufficiency

Most of the farms that I’ve seen who have bought into regenerative or “sustainable” practices have a financial reason, rather than just an ideological one. They want long-term viability and to be able to absorb shocks they’ve observed in the field or have suffered in the bank account.

Such was the case with R&L Acres near Sperling, home to Manitoba’s first on-farm green ammonia plant.

Yes, government and researchers had an environmental interest in the initiative. It uses hydro power and electrolysis to get hydrogen from water, rather than natural gas. Combined with nitrogen from the atmosphere, it becomes on-farm manufactured ammonia.

Researchers have even suggested that green ammonia could one day become an alternate fuel source for machinery.

Farm owner Curtis Hiebert, though, also talked about a desire for self-sufficiency, to decouple from the whims of the fertilizer market and save money, especially when regular ammonia prices were up. The numbers presented in 2024 put final cost of a 500 tonne per year system at $948 per tonne for the farmer.

That may not always offer huge savings, but it will be consistent, and that certainty is also worth something. At the time the system was being installed, the fertilizer market was in turmoil because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Today, there’s a whole new set of world affairs mucking things up.

One plant doesn’t mean green ammonia is about to roll over conventional ways of farming, nor is it clear how much our renewable energy infrastructure would be able to support. Manitoba Hydro has already warned about its looming capacity limits. The up-front cost of the system is also big: an estimated $4.5 million in 2024.

Green ammonia is, though, an example of the kind of farm-focused innovation that could offer legitimate solutions and resiliency in an increasingly uncertain world.

We shouldn’t get so caught on the word “green,” and any complicated feelings that word comes with, that we dismiss the equally real impacts for self-sufficiency, sovereignty, stability and, in the best of cases, cost savings.

The post OPINION: Global chaos raises stakes for green farm technology appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

It produced wheat varieties that compete globally, barley that meets exacting malt standards and pulses that opened new export markets.

It has served us well.

However, systems built for one era are not automatically sustainable in the next.

The recent reductions within Agriculture Canada have sparked understandable concern across the farm community.

Behind every program are people, communities and decades of work. No one should dismiss that.

At the same time, reacting as though this is a temporary storm that will soon pass risks missing the larger reality.

Public budgets are tightening. Research costs are rising. Expectations for speed, commercialization and global competitiveness are increasing.

Those pressures are not cyclical. They are structural and exemplified by the news of Richard Cuthbert’s departure.

The question facing Canadian agriculture is not whether public crop breeding has value. It unquestionably does. The real question is whether the current delivery model is built to thrive under modern constraints.

For decades, farmers have been active contributors to this system.

Through check-offs, commissions and collaborative funding models, growers have helped sustain research capacity across cereals and diverse field crops.

We are not distant beneficiaries. We are co-investors, and that distinction matters.

Around the world, farmer-led seed organizations have emerged not out of ideological battles but out of practical recognition.

When growers hold meaningful ownership, three things tend to follow: clearer accountability to farm-level needs, reinvestment aligned with production realities and long-term stewardship insulated from annual political cycles.

“We are not distant beneficiaries. We are co-investors, and that distinction matters.”

Darcy Pawlik, Wheat Growers Association

This is not a call to dismantle public science. On the contrary, it may be the best way to protect it.

Governments are uniquely positioned to focus on foundational research, regulatory modernization, market access and large-scale innovation. But expecting them to indefinitely carry the full commercial burden of variety development may no longer be realistic.

If the pressures are permanent, then leadership requires a permanent solution.

That conversation will not be easy. It requires careful transition planning, respect for public servants and rigorous due diligence to ensure national assets are protected and strengthened.

It also requires farmers to move from a mindset of advocacy alone to one of ownership.

The choice before us is not between public and private. It is between passive dependence and active stewardship.

Canada’s crop breeding legacy deserves more than preservation. It deserves evolution into something strong, admirable and resilient.

Darcy Pawlik is executive director of the Wheat Growers Association.

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Canola prices are up as China followed through on its promise to reduce anti-dumping duties after Canada eased steep tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. While not zero, tariffs of just under 15 per cent make it possible to restore trade flows and maintain China as Canada’s second-largest canola customer.

As well, Canada’s prime minister was recently in India on another diplomatic defrosting mission that had positive implications for agricultural exports. Any time the world’s largest exporter of pulse crops like peas, lentils and chickpeas can make inroads into the world’s biggest market for those commodities, the sun shines a little brighter.

While more sales to India weren’t on the agenda, talks between Mark Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi still showed progress. Among the dozens of outcomes was an agreement to jointly develop an India-Canada Pulse Protein Centre of Excellence, with a goal to advance co-operation in value-added agriculture and food innovation.

Collaboration and co-operation on trade don’t erase the diplomatic tensions with either of these global giants, but whenever there is conversation, there are opportunities for finding more common ground.

There are even hints of trade talks resuming with the U.S. to determine the future of the all-important trade deal that allows most agricultural products to flow between the two countries tariff-free. While farmers can be under no illusion that these talks will adhere to common-sense principles, at least they are happening.

So, things were indeed looking up.

Then the U.S and Israel launched their offensive against Iran. While the rationale and the timing for this conflict remain openly debated, many doubt this will be over any time soon.

Of direct concern to farmers across North America is the significance of the Strait of Hormuz to the world’s fertilizer and fuel supply chains. Fertilizer and fuel account for more than 40 per cent of a grain farmer’s annual operating costs.

Around 20 per cent of the seaborne oil and up to one-third of global trade in urea passes through the strait, which has effectively been closed due to the threat of missile strikes. Prices have spiked, jarring the global economy and threatening to wipe out any income gains with much higher costs.

The fighting has also shut down key nitrogen fertilizer production facilities as sources of natural gas are cut. There are reports the conflict has shuttered three of the world’s largest urea exporters and three of its largest anhydrous exporters in Qatar, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Fertilizer prices were already at historical highs last fall, which left farmers with the dilemma of taking the hit then — and hoping they didn’t feel like a fool if prices dropped — or waiting, and hoping they didn’t feel like a fool if prices rose higher in the spring.

Analysts believe there is likely enough fertilizer in position to get farmers through seeding. The main effect will be on the cost for any supplies not yet priced and for supplies going forward.

Securing the Strait of Hormuz for commercial shipments will take more than rhetoric and promises. Merely the threat of attack is enough to give commercial shippers pause. Military escorts tie up critical naval forces indefinitely and, although they offer protection, there are no guarantees of safe passage. As well, placing naval resources in those waters makes military personnel sitting ducks — which ups the political stakes.

Pollsters say American voters didn’t support this war in the first place. Their appetite for putting troops on the ground is even lower. How does a rising body count play out in the approaching mid-term elections, especially considering the data that shows disproportionate number of military recruits come from the same rural areas that form the Republican base?

The point is, even the instigators are now acknowledging this is more complicated than it first seemed.

Once again, farmers are caught in the crossfire through no doing of their own.

What really burns is that there isn’t a darn thing farmers can do about it — except build a wider margin for geopolitical risk into their game plans.

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It didn’t take long to see the reaction. Rather than accept the court’s limits on his authority, President Trump pivoted immediately, criticizing the ruling and announcing new tariffs under a different statute, with hints that rates could rise further — a response entirely consistent with his brand.

Some pundits rushed to claim the decision was a humiliation. That is nonsense. If anything, the ruling handed President Trump an opportunity to inject even more uncertainty into global markets. A Supreme Court endorsement of the original tariffs would have created a predictable — if unpleasant — framework. Predictability allows businesses to adjust. What we now face instead is fluidity. And fluidity, in trade policy, is far more destabilizing.

Canada conducts roughly $100 billion a year in agri-food trade with the United States, with close to two-thirds of our food exports heading south. This is not simple trade — it is integration.

Cattle and hogs cross the border for feeding and processing. Canola is crushed in Canada and enters the U.S. as oil and meal. Processed foods depend on American ingredients, machinery and distribution networks. Hundreds of millions of dollars in food products move across the border every single day. When Washington experiments with tariff authority, that uncertainty moves directly from farm gate to grocery shelf.

Even before the Supreme Court’s ruling, many Canadian food businesses exporting non-CUSMA compliant products were forced to reduce their prices simply to remain competitive in the U.S. market. American buyers facing tariff costs could easily switch to domestic alternatives. To preserve contracts and shelf space, Canadian exporters absorbed part of the tariff burden themselves.

That meant thinner margins, delayed investments, and in some cases postponed expansion plans. Tariffs do not just tax goods — they compress profitability.

Risk remains

Even if CUSMA-compliant goods remain exempt for now, trade risk has not disappeared. A product can be technically tariff-free and still face higher input costs, stricter border scrutiny, currency volatility and contract renegotiations.

In a deeply integrated $100-billion food corridor, uncertainty alone raises wholesale costs — and wholesale costs eventually reach consumers. Food prices in Canada can move without a single tariff being formally applied.

Looking ahead to the CUSMA review, the environment has rarely looked more delicate. President Trump could threaten to dismantle the trilateral framework and pursue bilateral deals with Canada and Mexico separately. The threat itself would be a powerful negotiating tactic.

In practice, fully tearing up CUSMA would be economically disruptive and politically complex, especially given the degree of North American integration in agri-food. More likely, bilateralization would serve as leverage rather than destination. But with this week’s rapid pivot, complacency would be naïve.

In Ottawa, restraint will matter. Escalating with new counter-tariffs to “punish” the Americans would only ricochet back onto Canadian grocery bills, as we have already seen. In the current environment, discipline — not bravado — will determine whether Canadian consumers ultimately pay the price.

The post Trade uncertainty is back on the Canadian national menu appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Just as Bayer was rolling out a new plan in mid-February to settle once and for all thousands of lawsuits claiming the active ingredient in Roundup causes cancer, United States President Donald Trump was declaring the product critical to the nation’s food security.

These are just the latest twists in a plotline that has embroiled regulatory agencies in controversy, and which has now jumped out of courtrooms and the quarterly investor reports to the highest political level.

Bayer shares jumped and then slumped as the market debated whether the company’s proposed US$7.25 billion settlement plan would end the legal nightmare it inherited with its purchase of Monsanto in 2018. It has reportedly already paid out more than $10 billion to settle claims glyphosate exposure is connected to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

It’s a costly remedy to a problem Bayer says shouldn’t exist. Of the cases that have gone to trial, the company has won more than it has lost, but it’s desperate to cap its exposure.

Bayer has warned that if it can’t find a way out of the legal morass, it will have no option but to quit making and selling glyphosate. That would leave it to generic manufacturers — mostly located in China — to supply the North American market.

However, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to ensure domestic production of glyphosate and phosphorus, deeming them critical to national and food security.

The move angered the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement that has heavily influenced the current Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy’s approach to food regulation and nutritional guidelines. And it forced him to choose between his own track record of condemning the herbicide and his loyalty to Trump. He chose Trump — which is making MAHA even madder.

The Supreme Court of the United States is also expected to weigh in this year on a critical legal question underpinning the outstanding legal claims, which are based on the premise that Roundup’s product labels failed to warn users that glyphosate may cause cancer.

However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (as has Health Canada) has consistently ruled that the herbicide is not a carcinogen, and it has approved the Roundup label without such a warning.

Bayer’s position is that federal labelling laws pre-empt the failure-to-warn claims made under state laws. If a product doesn’t cause cancer, how can the company put a warning on the label saying it does?

Adding more confusion to the hullabaloo, the scientific journal Regulatory and Toxicology Pharmacology, one of the leading peer-reviewed resources on product safety, announced late last year that it was taking the rare step of retracting a 25-year-old study “widely regarded as the hallmark paper” used by regulators to conclude glyphosate is safe.

The journal’s editor said in a statement that three academics whose names appear on the study “Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans” cherry-picked the data, they may have accepted payments from Monsanto, and had help from Monsanto writing the report.

This disclosure in no way proves that glyphosate poses undue risk to human health. However, it makes it harder to support claims that it is unequivocally safe, and it further erodes public trust.

Canada’s own Pest Management Regulatory Agency had one of its approvals for products containing glyphosate thrown out by the Federal Court of Canada last year because it failed to conduct a thorough-enough assessment.

Farmers and the public deserve to have these products regulated rigorously and transparently. Decisions must fully consider the benefits and costs plus there is an onus on users to use appropriate safeguards.

That said, however, farmers, who are more exposed than anyone to whatever risk there is, tend towards pragmatism over the product’s safety relative to the other perils of their job. They, like the rest of us, are surrounded by known carcinogens ranging from exhaust fumes and processed meats to alcohol or too much sun.

Farmers are more worried about losing the herbicide that has played a pivotal role in conservation agriculture and the chill this saga puts on new product investment — which is a valid concern.

Weeds are continuously evolving; there is a growing list of plants that are resistant to herbicides such as glyphosate, yet there are few new modes of action coming to market.

The glyphosate story might make good television drama someday, but it’s a horror flick for investors.

The post A short recap of the never-ending glyphosate saga appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.