So, are we still bullish on grains?  Or after market action of last week do we all have collective heartburn?  If there has ever been a laboratory for our noncommercial speculative positions affect the grain market last week was it. I think as a country, Canadian farmers need a total attitude adjustment when it comes to pricing grains.  This new marketing horizon challenges all our accepted marketing paradigms.

I really believe that.  Needless to say, when you say Canada needs an attitude adjustment about pricing grains, that’s a pretty big statement.  It is one thing to say that we need to price our grain differently and it is another thing to talk about Canada.  I have had the unique privilege of writing to Canadian farmers for the last 25 years.  Next week will mark the 25th anniversary of when I started writing this column.  However it was only in 1994 when DTN picked me up that I began writing across Canada and the United States.  I truly realize when I say Canadian farmers that I am talking to a diverse group, which spans from the Maritimes to British Columbia.  So one marketing solution or attitude adjustment will not fit all.

In January of 2011 I will be traveling to Edmonton Alberta to speak about the future of Canadian agriculture and about all the changes that I see.  The total package for that presentation is yet to be finished but I hope I can relay to the delegates at the Alberta conference just how different farmers are across the country and how that challenges our collective marketing outlook.  There is a big difference between selling wheat in Ontario versus Quebec versus Western Canada.  It surely stems from market structure but also stems from the collective psyche, which makes up the Canadian agricultural mind.

A couple weeks ago I contacted our senior grain analyst at DTN, Darin Newsom, because I knew he was traveling to Canada to give a presentation.  We had chatted sometime before and he told me about his upcoming trip to Alberta to speak in Red Deer at the Agri-trade show.   He had mentioned that it might be nice to chat before he went to Canada to speak.  Now I know that Darin Newsom doesn’t need my advice on the markets.  I was just offering some unsolicited Canadian advice about Canadians.  I told Darren many things that I thought might be helpful but I also told him about the three Canadian agricultural countries, Western Canada, Quebec and Ontario.

I say that because I believe it.  Just like the non-commercials influencing our grain markets are making them unrecognizable it is very similar to the Canadian farmers within each one of those regions.  Simply put, Canadian farmers don’t know each other.  The vast rocky, forested Canadian Shield forms a natural border between the agricultural regions of eastern Canada and Western Canada.  It is not only a separation of farming regions but also a complete separation of farming systems, farming psychology and farmers’ marketing expectations.

The same holds true between Québec agriculture and everybody else in Canada.  If you are a Quebec farmer you know in your soul what it means to be a Quebecer.  The Quebec agricultural system is the strongest in Canada in every way and the Quebec attitude is different than anywhere else.  Only the Ontario farmers in the far reaches of Eastern Ontario have a somewhat good understanding of that.  Put it all together and you have three agricultural countries in Canada all working with one common Canadian agricultural policy.

It is so difficult to describe but it is so real.  You could argue that Quebec is the hardest to understand for those who do not speak French.  Your loyal scribe has actually worked and given speeches in Quebec in English so I try hard.  However, unless you speak the language you are really only a spectator.  When you mix in the Western Canadian penchant for marketing freedom for their wheat, this Ontario agricultural economist/evangelist knows it’s a tall order to propose a total attitude adjustment on how we price Canadian grains.

I may be yelling through the wrong Inukshuk regarding this.   However, when something so foreign as the threat of increased Chinese interest rates drops grains down the limit one day and almost again a few days later somebody needs to turn the light on.  We are living in a new marketing day.  Today’s markets are much more about rumour, opinions and fewer facts.  As Canadians and as Quebeckers we need to fight through our differences and listen to our new world.  Our old axioms and marketing paradigms regarding agricultural prices need to be struck down.   We are kidding ourselves if we don’t believe that.  When I tell this story in Edmonton Alberta January 20th, 2011, I hope somebody will be listening.