Positive Mood In Ag Community To End 2012

By Kelvin Heppner

Thursday, 27 December 2012

Canadian farmers are more optimistic than they’ve been in a while, according to the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

“I would say the mood in the farm community is more positive than I’ve seen it in a number of years. Prices have stabilized. Western Canada had decent crop yields and high quality, so by in large I think it’s pretty good,” says Ron Bonnett, reflecting on 2012.

He notes it’s largely due to the drought in the US.

“That’s one of those cases where somebody has a problem, and it turns into somebody else’s benefit. In this case, what happened in the Midwest US had a huge impact on us,” he says.

The drought was also the main factor leading to high feed prices that crippled the hog industry. Bonnett says the challenges in the pork and feedlot sectors were the notable exceptions in a generally positive year  for Canadian agriculture.

Courtesy: Pembina Valley