Possible Trump tariffs remain big question mark for southwestern Ontario farmers

Jan 07, 2025

Canadian economics have been in the headlines a lot lately as it relates to the United States, possible tariffs and president-elect Donald Trump.

Much of the talk has been about manufacturing — auto specifically — especially here in southwestern Ontario.

But did you know that roughly 50 per cent of what we expert as a country is the food eat related to agriculture and farming in Canada?

resden, Ont., farmer and agricultural economist Philip Shaw says the possible tariffs remain the biggest question mark for southwestern Ontario farmers in 2025.

He talked with CBC Radio's Windsor Morning producer Peter Duck about his expectations for the new year — and a quick reflection on how things were in 2024. Here's a portion of that conversation.

How was the year as a whole for agriculture … looking back at 2024, especially here in southwestern Ontario?

Generally, we think about how good the crop was this past year and we did have a pretty good crop.

I know some of the crops in Essex this past year were better than they were in 2023. Generally speaking, what you found with grain prices in 2024 going into 2025 was that we got down to the lowest levels we've seen since just before the pandemic and the last Trump presidency.

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators