I’ve done a fair bit of marketing writing over the last several years and of course one of the favorite questions I get from readers, listeners and friends is to what is the price of corn going to be? If you’ve read this column over the last 35 years you will know that my standard answer is nobody knows. I have often thought if I did know what the price of corn was going to be I wouldn’t be trying to grow it and, in a post, Covid world I’d be on the beach somewhere far away. March corn finished at $6.03 today, while December corn is fluttering near the $5.54 level. so, if you believe the futures market, that’s where the price of corn will be.

We shall see. If you follow the markets, you will know that these prices are healthy compared to historical futures prices at this time of year. You also know that we have some good new crop price opportunities about mid-June of every year for corn and about mid-July for soybeans. With snow blowing across my farm fields here in southwestern Ontario, the idea of planting corn seems so far away. However, they will be planting corn in Brazil after soybeans are harvested, so we’ll need to keep abreast of harvest progress. I have a friend in Brazil that says agriculture never stops in Brazil. At times, I think he is very right with Brazil having such a huge propensity for production. However, this past week some private firms in the United States cut Brazil soybean production this year because of the drought in the southern areas. There will be more news ahead. I’ll leave it up to you to judge whether those futures prices work for you or not.

It’s not lost on me that some farmers are nervous about planting corn in 2022. We all know why; those fertilizer prices are scaring everybody. However, as I told you in earlier columns it is a question of knowing your marginal costs of producing an additional bushel of corn. As long as your marginal revenue from producing that additional bushel is higher than your marginal cost you are good to go for 2022. With nitrogen prices 100% higher than what we are used to it’s only normal to be a bit concerned.

Corn prices remain in a bullish market structure, something that I was quite surprised about going into late fall. Simply put, when we have big crops like we did last year in the United States usually we have quite a price swoon. I guess I should be thankful that that hasn’t quite happened. On the other hand, wheat prices have been in the stratosphere, but today March Chicago wheat closed 14 and three quarters cents lower falling to a two-month low below the 100-day moving average. Of course, as always, with wheat it’s hard to tell why. For anybody lucky enough to have wheat in Ontario this year, with the Canadian dollar hovering around $0.78 cents US, $9 dollar wheat is still in the cards.

We all know the soybean story in front of those futures prices. With a big crop in Brazil coming the market has been weighing that very carefully. Brazil seems to be bulletproof regarding production problems, but dry weather in their south is currently giving some buoyancy to those soybean futures prices. We have March futures at approximately $13.87 with November 2022 features to $13.06. Cash bids for Ontario soybeans are over $17.00 a bushel and the new crop bids are almost $16 a bushel. FOB soybean bids out of Brazil now are lower than US gulf bids for January and February. It is what it is, China will soon be gorging on soybeans from South America again.

Where do you find yourself in this mix? Well, this past week John Deere had a big splash about their new autonomous tractor that will be available for you to buy in late 2022. At the same time, I’m sure other makes will be making those splashes too. I also watched a webinar today on a 16-row corn planter, which can be run at 10 mph. It seems there are several makes of those available.

Clearly, if we could ignore Omicron for a little bit, it is all blue skies ahead at least in these first few weeks in January 2022. Keep in mind also that we live in a fluid world, where geopolitical events can change things very quickly especially on the price front. We have no idea what the growing season is going to be like ahead. However, it will be risky or in other words, normal for most of us. Taking a bit of risk off the table is all good. At the present time, it’s there for the taking.