The corn harvest continues in Ontario, and it is a snowy one at that. We have about 25% of Ontario corn acres still in the field and with cold weather and snow inundating many areas, it's just making it difficult. Winter came a bit early to southern Ontario. Often we have mild weather right into December. This year, some of our corn acreage won't be harvested until spring.

Unfortunately, that's the risk you take this far north. Of course, Ontario corn farmers have a plethora of risk factors just like our American friends. However, last week we were reminded that all risks growing corn are not equal. Our American friends who grow corn, soybeans and wheat among other commodities got a huge infusion of revenue last week as President Donald Trump announced the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program. (See https://www.dtnpf.com/…)

The level of assistance is still up to some conjecture but let's call it $50 an acre as a rule of thumb. The total funding is $12 billion. For American farmers it's a welcome infusion of capital which is designed to mitigate market disruptions, higher input costs, inflation and economic losses caused by foreign competition. For Eastern Canadian farmers, it represents something that they'll never get, and it will make cheap, now subsidized U.S. corn imported into Canada that much more controversial.

If you are an American farmer, I'd advise you to cash those checks when they come in. You could bet if Canadian farmers got those checks, we would cash them, too. However, keep in mind from a Canadian perspective much of the reasons given for handing out this payment were caused by the Trump administration itself. Trade wars might be easy to win, but they certainly are costly and the payment to U.S. producers is part of that. At the end of the day, the U.S. always takes care of its farmers, and it is something that Canadian farmers can only wish for. Often, regardless of political stripe we never hear much from the federal government regarding farm issues.

Keep in mind that this subsidy money in the U.S. will be recapitalized back into the farm economy. Recapitalization will go back into land, equipment and any other fixed assets on U.S. farms. That's not really an editorial comment, just more a fact of life. The present American administration has more of an aggressive adversarial relationship with the rest of the world, which will make it more difficult for freer agricultural trade. These bridge payments certainly could become an annual thing.

At the same press conference as the bridge payments were announced, Trump argued that environmental and other regulatory requirements on farm equipment like tractors and combines have made it more expensive and more complicated. He mused these machinery companies should reduce prices and said he might be able to relax some environmental restrictions on agricultural equipment which he said adds costs to the bottom line. I actually heard the press conference live and I was wondering whether this meant the possible end of Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF). Every farmer could identify with this, as emission reduction components on tractors and combines can be troublesome.

On top of this last week, we had the December World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report. These reports have been playing catch-up partly because of the government shutdown in the U.S. However, the December report didn't have much to it. The biggest news was that the USDA increased corn exports to 3.2 billion bushels (bb), which is a record for corn exports. This will have the effect of lowering our corn ending stocks down to 2.029 bb which is below pre-report estimates. Everything else in the report on soybeans and wheat was pretty well the status quo. (See https://www.dtnpf.com/… and https://www.dtnpf.com/…).

On Jan. 12 we will get the first version of the final USDA numbers. With demand for corn on the warpath, it will be interesting to see if these numbers get changed further.

The grain futures market has been fairly unimpressed with all of this. In other words, if you are waiting for some big distraction to take this market up further, we are not seeing it yet. In fact, January soybeans have dropped close to $0.90 per bushel since Nov. 18. China has not bought very many soybeans and with Brazilian soybeans cheaper than U.S. soybeans now, there really is no reason to. Grain futures markets might settle into a quiet holiday mode for the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, a fresh South American soybean crop is enjoying the sun. That is also weighing on prices. As we look ahead, the challenge for Canadian farmers is to keep grinding forward in a world that rarely grinds back for us. Our American friends will ride into 2026 with fresh subsidy money, while we'll be staring down snow-covered cornfields and basis levels built on the back of somebody else's policy choices. That's our reality. The combines may be frozen out for now, but the resolve isn't. Canadian farmers have always had a way of pushing through the snowdrifts, waiting for that next window of opportunity to open -- and when it does, we'll be ready.

**

The views expressed are those of the individual author and not necessarily those of DTN, its management or employees.

Philip Shaw can be reached at philip@philipshaw.ca

Follow him on social platform X @Agridome

(c) Copyright 2025 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.