We have Canadian winter back for many farmers in Ontario farm country.   Ditto across much of Western Canada and Quebec. This past week there were several days when snow squalls came off Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, which typically means copious amounts of snow through wide swaths of Ontario.  With memories of a warm winter last year, it would seem that things are changing.  We will see what happens next.

Knowing what will happen next is always a proverbial question for farmers.  As always, there is never a shortage of what to learn from what you’ve done in the past but also from the things you can garner about the future. It is a never-ending journey.

Interestingly enough, farmers themselves are one of the most studied groups in the agricultural industrial complex. Companies spend millions of dollars trying to figure out what farmers want and then at the same time develop communication programs to affect the way they buy and influence others. Years ago, your loyal scribe actually did my master’s degree on agricultural psychographics, the science of farmers interests and opinions. Back in 1984 I published my work categorizing Canadian farmers according to their psychographics. To say the least, farmers are a unique bunch, it’s hard to paint them all with one brush.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was questioning one of my Quebec grain analyst regarding farmers intentions on their grain sales in 2024 and 2025.  I have great respect for my Quebec analyst who always gives me a real good picture of what’s going on in Quebec. However, when I recently read his comments, I thought that he might be taking great latitude with regard to what he thought were farmers marketing intentions. I was reading some of his comments about how Quebec farmers were selling their grain and I could not recognize anything like that in Ontario which I might comment on here.   In other words, my answer is I don’t know because I don’t.  I can only muse about farmer selling based on basis values and to some extent future spreads.

Needless to say, I went to the source, and we had quite a good conversation about this. He told me that he looks at basis values in detail and has private sources of information, which I can only dream of in Ontario. He said there was a bit of an art form predicting how farmers might sell their grain. He put together all the information he had and combined it with other primary sources of information from government and came up with the best estimates he could. I guess I do the same thing here in Ontario, although I’m not as polished as my esteemed colleague in Quebec.

Still, I want to know. How do farmers sell their grain and what factors do they ultimately use with pulling that sales trigger? I have often thought we should leave emotion at home when we do sell our grain but at the same time, I’ve listened to other grain analysts who say that selling grain is an emotional experience that shouldn’t be negated. At the end of the day, I go back to what I know and that is that I don’t know. However, I often list a myriad of market factors that might help you with your grain marketing decision.

Having said that, I really find it interesting at times measuring farmer sentiment.  For instance, I recently read on DTN that the Purdue CME Group Ag Economy Barometer which is based on a monthly survey had jumped 30 points from October to November. In other words, farmers moods had brightened considerably.  This was explained away as result of the Trump victory. On the other hand, I did not read any Canadian farmer sentiment.   I’m not so sure that it would mirror the American one.  The bottom line is, trying to understand farmers whether it has to do with marketing grain or their mood in general is more or less a black box. It’s so very hard to know.

In many ways all of this shows us farmers themselves are hard to measure.  Last week I had a farmer from Manitoba talking to me about moving his grain into North Dakota for a better price.  Of course, he was talking to me after I wrote that column about a 25% tariff put on his grain going into the United States. I suppose we all had that in common last week.  However, most of the time there is nothing homogeneous about Canadian farmers.  Our geography and language make us different so does our psychographics and who knows what else.

So how many farmers are selling their grain?  I’m just guessing, but I’ll take the word of a very few grain merchandisers who know what their list of farmers are doing.  Other than that, it’s hard to know.  Farmer have real power.  However, harnessing it outside the agricultural production arena has always been elusive. However, that won’t stop others to keep trying.  Farmers as a group are continually studied especially by those who want their money.    Maybe it’s not so bad, to keep them continually off balance.