North Gower Grains

Thursday, October 29, 2026, 7:25 am

Wednesday was a mostly negative day for our markets.  Harvest corn closed up 3, harvest soybeans closed down 4 3/4, spot winter wheat closed down 11 1/4 and spot spring wheat closed down 8 1/4.  In the overnight trade all of our markets are on the negative side.  Oil closed up $2.88 yesterday at $102.78 per barrel.  It is weaker this morning with it now priced at $101.26.  Our dollar started out yesterday morning at $0.711 US and then traded higher going up to $0.716 US last night.  This morning it has pulled back just a bit with it currently valued at $0.715 US. 

It was nice yesterday to see the corn market finally have a positive day.  It has only closed positive 5 times during the month of October.  It was probably supported somewhat from the weekly ethanol production numbers out of the US.  Weekly production was up just over 2% to sit at 1.118 million barrels per day.  Blender demand increased slightly more than this and exports were down slightly for the week.  The net result was that ethanol stocks declined by 0.1% to come in at 24.52 million barrels. 

On the soybean front it was reported yesterday that a consulting company in Brazil projected that their soybean yield could in theory decrease down to 163.6 million tonnes this production year due to the effects of the Super El Nino.  The USDA is projecting their crop to come in at 186 million tonnes.  With the European Union now requiring their importers to prove their products are not linked to deforested land there is concern that this will hurt soybean meal exports from Brazil to the EU.  Argentina is still the world’s largest soybean meal exporter however Brazil has been steadily increasing their market share in this market over the last bunch of years. 

Locally for soybeans the export market has turned weaker at least in the short term due to the lack of competition.  The brokers tell us that they are pulling back as the lack of Laker freight this year is driving transportation prices much higher making Ontario soybeans unattractive on the world market.  The net result for farmers is lower basis levels to go with the lower prices on the CBOT.  All in all prices are still historically attractive but are well off their highs made back in early September. 

It was interesting on the economic front yesterday to see that the Bank of Canada increased its benchmark interest rate by 0.25% when at the same time the US Federal Reserve decided to hold their benchmark interest rate unchanged.  Both sides talked about higher inflation with our side deciding that interest rates needed to increase to help curb inflation and the US side deciding it did not need to increase their interest rate. 

Geoffrey Guy | 613-880-2707
Adam Plater | 613-220-8961
Bob Orr | 613-720-1271
Tony Mitchell | 613-227-2525
Office | 613-489-0956