The needle hasn’t moved much for me this week as cool and damp weather continues but I’m hoping for better things after an uneven wet weekend weather forecast.  No, I do not expect another 2019 where we were planting soybeans into July. Statistics Canada is expecting 2.3 million acres of corn to be planted in Ontario this year and 920,000 acres in Quebec.  Aside from that, they are expecting 2.9 million acres of soybeans in Ontario and 910,400 acres in Quebec.  So, we better get started soon!

It surely will happen, as farmers we are very used to the vagaries of the weather.   It was that anomaly last fall where we had open dry weather that led to so much more wheat production here in Ontario. That is directly related to the decrease in soybean acres this spring.   Of course, if this wet weather continued maybe that soybean acreage number goes up and that Ontario corn acreage number goes down.  Give me 5 weeks and we should know the end of that story.

In the intervening time farmers will be planting, spraying and doing whatever else it takes to try and bring a record harvest out of their fields. It is not lost on anybody in farm country that every year we throw millions of dollars into the top few inches of the earth trying to get something to grow. The risks are enormous, but history tells us that most of the time we succeed. So, every year we go out and do the same thing.  Nothing is ever so good that it can’t be improved.  That means that every year farmers try to be more and more productive. In other words, getting more economic output from an incremental input of production.  To go further, what I’m talking about is 100 bushel per acre soybeans and 300 bushel per acre corn.

If it was so easy. As farmers we all know that our crop weather often defines what we get on the other side. I have a running joke with an agronomist friend of mine that it’s never about fertility.  in other words, usually on my farm fertility is not the issue that defines a successful year. 2022 was an example of that. I did everything in my power to make for a great crop, but it never did rain giving me very uneven results. Fertility made no difference.  The challenge of course is to optimize the resources you work with and try even harder to do better the following year.

So here we are in 2023 and I’m trying even harder. At the same time there is newer and newer technology available to help me mitigate my risk. For instance, there is lots of new equipment that helps me measure results. There’s lots of new equipment that helps me do things in a much better and easier way. There is lots of new equipment that at one time in my career I could never even imagine.  Yes, autosteer is the 8th wonder of the world.  Autonomy kits in the tractors I drive now might be the next thing. Doing it all in an economically efficient manner will continue to be the challenge.

You could make the argument that all farmers have faced this down through the years.  There is some truth in that.   You could also argue that in the last few years the rate of change with the advent of computer technology on the farm has added even greater complexity and opportunity to the efficiency game.  With the advent of even newer technologies like artificial intelligence it opens up the horizon in the future for even better management decisions “on the go”.

Many of you are guilty of searching YouTube to figure out how to solve any assortment of farm equipment problems. Your loyal scribe pleads guilty too. Just think if you can access some mobile artificial intelligence applications on your smartphone to get even better explanations of what to do. To go further, think about all the applications that artificial intelligence might have for agricultural extension services. Think of all the opportunity that you might be able to capture based on all of this information being available to you.

Of course, this is all happening in a marketing environment where grain prices have weakened substantially over the last few months.  Our Brazilian friends are producing record crops almost every year and are becoming so efficient that they might land some of these soybeans into the southeastern United States, but also into Quebec.  That can only be construed as bearish for Ontario and Quebec cash grain prices.  of course, if it ever happens it’ll just be another adjustment, one where we’re challenged to just become more and more efficient.

Of course, that’s what 100 bushel per acre soybeans and 300 bushel per acre corn is about. The challenge on Eastern Canadian farms is to produce more for less just like our Brazilian and American friends.  We don’t have the comparative advantage that they do with climate, but that doesn’t matter, we still have to try hard.

The bottom line is, the farm productivity equation is such a vicious cycle. Generally speaking, you try to produce more and that ultimately results in receiving less per production unit, so you try to produce more and more, and the cycle continues.  Usually this would mean more acres like our Brazilian friends, but with our cold climate, not so much in Canada.  At least for now, but who knows where new unseen technology will take us in the future.  Hopefully that will be 300 bushel per acre corn, wait!