Grain today - August 2022

Good Day,

Well, we have made it through another crop year and it was a very interesting year. Short crop which led to good prices, followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This drove the markets into an extreme situation with prices whipsawing back and forth faster than a person could follow. Prices in western Canada topped out 6-8 weeks ago. Then the funds thought they would take the profits they had made and now the Russians pretended they were going to allow grain exports to start again and this put prices into a virtual freefall. Every time we thought we had hit bottom, a new low occurred.

It doesn’t feel that we are getting anywhere close to stable markets in the near future. This period will have been a real test for market advisors and producers alike. Do you recommend selling when canola rallies $40 in a day only to drop $38 the next day? Do you as a producer lock in some of the prices that are still available? Eg) – Oats at $7.00 for off combine in March compared to $5.00 right now for the same timeframe. This is likely one of the hardest times to decide what to do. We might be able to help so don’t hesitate to contact any of the excellent people working with Quality Grain.

Crop prospects seem to be fairly good across the prairies right now. Things are delayed in eastern SK and MB as it was too wet at seeding plus flooding in the Red River valley. I would say that 90% of the intended acres are still in production at this time between some fields that were just too wet and the drowned out spots. Pretty much everyone I have talked to in this area are saying crops look amazing considering how wet it was through May and June. We are seeing fall rye and what little winter wheat survived getting close to harvest. We do have good interest in both crops for Sept-Nov movement. $8.00 rye is still available if anyone is interested.

Some things to remember as harvest approaches.

Keep good samples of every bin. This is a money maker. There is no way you can maximize the returns from your crop without good information. Do not be afraid to spend some money getting your samples graded. The local line companies are grading for their own benefit not yours. Intertec or SGS do a great job of giving you EXPORT based grades on all crops. There is nothing worse than shipping several loads of what you thought were #2 quality oats as an example and the buyer grades them a 4. Now what do you do? Bring them home? Not likely an option. Discounts are at buyer's discretion. That is not likely going to be fun.

Be careful with cleanout of trucks and handling equipment when switching crops. Nothing worse than having that discount or causing a rejection on the last load out of the bin due to contamination.

Keep good records on what was applied to the crop as harvest approaches. We are getting more enquiries about that and more bids based on no glyphosate on oats and peas as an example. It isn’t that we can find decent markets if you are forced to apply certain products, but we need to know at the time of marketing.

Price discovery is harder than I have ever seen it in the 18 years I have been working with Quality Grain. Some days we have no bid on certain commodities. The best thing you can do is give us a call and we will get to work and find out what the buyers are thinking.

I would be very interested if some of our producers would give us a bit of an update on how their crops are doing as far as maturity and yield potential.  We would prefer that you be a bit more accurate than you are while completing your Stats Canada reports HAHA. We will let everyone know what info we get from this request.

On that note, we will be in touch again later in the month. Until then be careful and enjoy what is left of summer.


Till next month.


Richard Chambers
Marketer - Brandon, MB
204-729-1354 - Office
204-761-8320 - Cell
[email protected]