OFA still working on lower electricity rates for farmers</

Jan 22, 2016

And still hoping for progress on natural gas

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

According to the OFA, “Ontario farmers are dealing with one of the highest electricity rates in North America.” So it’s no surprise they’re not giving up the fight.

A Jan. 8 publication by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture outlined some of the pressing issues facing Ontario’s commercial farmers heading into 2016.

Among them were property taxation, farmland preservation, land-use planning and energy costs.

The Ministry of Energy said it’s committed to using all available resources to protect energy consumers in the province, but OFA said the efforts haven’t produced much success.

“In terms of electricity they haven’t been terribly productive,” said Neil Currie, OFA General Manager today. “We’ve been working with a coalition including the manufacturing sector and large electricity users on the industrial side of things. We made some fairly specific proposals as to how they might lower the rate.”

Currie said some of the proposals included the Debt Retirement Charge, which Ontario discontinued as of Jan. 1.

“That’s gone by the wayside now,” he said.

When it comes to natural gas, OMAFRA says the government is in the process of developing a $200 million Natural Gas Access Loan program and a $30 million Natural Gas Economic Development Grant Program.

OMAFRA says the province is working on the programs and wants to ensure they are designed properly.

“It started out promising,” Currie said. “We haven’t seen the details on that program yet. It hasn’t been rolled out.”

Currie said OFA is emphasizing investments in natural gas infrastructure and wants the provincial government to work along with the federal government to contribute to at least five per cent of the costs.

Video: Is China Buying US Soybeans + USDA Nov 14th Crop Report could be “Game Changing”

After a week of a U.S./China trade truce, markets/trade is skeptical that we have not seen a signed agreement nor heard much from China or seen any details. There are rumors that China is buying soybean futures & not the physical. Trust in Trump?
12 MMT of U.S. soybean purchases by China by year-end is better than 0 but we all need to give it more time and give it a chance to unfold. China did lower the tariffs on Ag and is buying U.S. wheat and sorghum.
U.S. supreme court could rule against Trumps tariffs, but the Trump administration does have a plan B.
U.S. government shutdown is now the longest in history at 38 days.
But despite a U.S. government shutdown we will be getting a USDA November crop report next Friday and it could be “game changing.” If the USDA provides a bullish surprise with lower U.S. corn and soybean yields and ending stocks that are lower than expected both corn and soybean futures will break out above their ceilings at $4.35/bu and $11.35/bu respectively.
The funds continued their selling in live and feeder cattle futures on continued fears that the Trump administration want to lower U.S. beef prices. The fundamentals have not changed, only market psychology has.
Stocks markets continue to worry about a weak U.S. job market, but you can blame ChatGPT for that. In the future, we will have a more efficient, productive and growing economy with a higher unemployment rate until we have more skilled AI workers.
After 34 new record highs in the S & P 500 and 124 new records in the NASDAQ in 2025 we are back to a correction and investor profit taking as AI valuations may have gotten too stretched near-term ahead of NVDA’s 3rd quarter earnings announcement on Nov. 19th. But this is not an AI bubble.
75% of Tesla shareholders approved a $1 trillion pay package for Elon Musk!
It has rained in South America in the last 7 days, but both the American and European models agree that Central Brazil remains dry in the next 14-days!

Driverless tractors on farms?

Mark Cohon speaks at BASF event