Predictions for farming in 2015!

[Braveheart]

My prediction for 2015 is that the gulf between the farmers that feel like victims to the system, and the farmers that are hustling their products and taking advantage of opportunities will widen.

Weather will again be a factor which is an easy prediction because it always is. But, rather than wet, I think we'll be extremely dry.

Commodities will remain range bound, but will establish new higher ranges as spring planting nears. Despite large near term supplies markets will work higher, "just in case".

[SASKFARMER3]

Brave and Crusher your real funny you make it sound like their are farmers who create their own disasters all the time. Yea wait my friends as the weather turns and the wet areas go back to normal and the dry areas go back to desert then after 8 years we will see how different ones speak.
AH grasshopper what goes around comes around.
Weather is in control in Canada. That's it.
Last winter rail service where Alberta got cars and we paid the price is all politics.

[SASKFARMER3]

What I meant is the victim card is funny!
8 years of floods and we loose two of Canada's largest corporate farms that played in our area.
Simply when I worked the Sw in the 80s and seen with my own eyes what drought could do but didn't live it, I didn't truly realize how devastating it was. Then the last 8 years of floods came and funny now I understand. Best life lesson. Hard lesson but best life lesson.
Cheers its farming.

[Braveheart]

SF3, sounds like you'll be taking your next vacation on Victim Island.

[SASKFARMER3]

Yep booked it already leave in February!
HA HA HA
Just remember the droughts lasted 6 years, How well will todays farms cope if history repeats. That's what we need to teach and show our young. What's happening today can change in a heart beat.
I simply am sick of moisture and hoping it dry's out. But the victim thing is funny, Trains moved Alberta grain all winter to make it seem like all was fine while we sat with no service all winter on contracts that were useless. Then a year later moving that grain.

[jake550]

I hope people predicting dry weather are accurate! 4 inches of rain during the growing season if it came at the right time would be perfect.

[SASKFARMER3]

Jake that's all I want its simple one after seeding and one at beginning of June and one at beginning July then Exhibition week in Regina and that's it repeat next year.

[freewheat]

No one knows what will happen. No one ever has, no one ever will.

Those who have been LUCKY, will do fine. Those who have had bad luck for a decade will be in trouble.

All I know, is I made all the best decisions for my farm the last decade. I am what I would call a "good, high producing farmer". But no matter what you do, if you can not seed because it is too wet, during a high price cycle, you would recognize choices you make mean nothing.

Weather luck, and forefathers luck. That IMO is what separates those with a more negative outlook, from those with a more positive outlook.

It is tough to have a positive outlook, when no matter what you do, you struggle to make a living.

But if you were well set up in the first place, or had the fortune of being able to seed every year for the last decade, and not lost millions of dollars to excessive rain, your attitude is going to be more positive, obviously.

My honest opinion? Most will laugh, but I feel if we do get into a couple of poor production years, land prices will crash hard, as farmers realize this is Saskatchewan, not Iowa.

But it is up to the weather.

I think it may well be dryer. I hope to heck so. If so, the former wet areas may well get a chance to prosper, regardless of our decision making abilities....

[grrrr]

I predict good crops, great weather for everyone, and SF3 will learn to spell and use punctuation properly. Oh, wait! I was dreaming!

[Hamloc]

I am not much for predictions but ai have a few thoughts. It is fairly obvious the bull run in commodities is over. I agree margins in canola will be much smaller than in the past few years. The big seed and fertilizer companies will extract more than their share. It is amazing how they have forced us to buy fertilizer storage and to pay for products 9 months out to control costs. How many businesses pay for product that long before we need it. Anyway got off track. Short and sweet. Margins will return to more historical norms. Machinery dealerships will be much less profitable. Livestock farms will make some money after many years of low returns. Both Alberta and federal governments will go to the polls both returning to power. Oil will be back to 70 dollars a barrel by year end. Cheers!