Canada’s food processing outlook clouded by weather and geopolitical uncertainty

FCC Ag Economics is doing a mid-year check-in on our January 2019 Outlooks. Throughout July and August, we’ll update our expectations about profitability across seven Canadian ag sectors (dairy, broilers, red meat, food processing, horticulture, agribusiness and grains, oilseeds and pulses). We’ll describe what’s happened in 2019 to-date and you should monitor in the next six months.

 

Our January forecast for varied food processing margins is holding up well. 

 

Demand is growing for potato products and red meat, but Canadian export potential continues to be limited due to both production and market access challenges. Potato processors, coming off a difficult year, must wait for the 2019 crop to tell if yield, quality and overall production improvements will provide better margins. Red meat processors may see positive margins strengthen, but that outlook is highly uncertain given ongoing trade tensions and improving weather on the prairies. Bread and pastries are growing in global import markets, but bakeries will likely see challenges in the year ahead.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.