Gerrid Gust 🇨🇦🧢

This was written back in 2006 after my closest call with a farm accident. Take your time out there and trust your intuition. Let’s help others on the farm. What are some of your closest calls? Stay Safe out there G

If you asked the average Canadian what sector of the economy is bigger, autos or grains and oilseeds, I would wager most would say the auto sector. I asked Google Gemini to break out each sector's contribution to GDP.

@davesullivan15 @RyanBonnett1 Grain companies figure data is power.

@RyanBonnett1 @gustgd Why doesn’t this already exist? Who’s stopping it?

For all farmers. This is a topic I feel all should be more informed about. This simple change in policy would bring so much more grain market data transparency to you for better marketing decisions. For example maybe your canola basis for new crop wouldn’t be -60. Maybe wheat basis levels wouldn’t widen out with every futures rally.

@RyanBonnett1 Thanks for Sharing Ryan 👍

Canada may be one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters, but grain producers are operating at a major market intelligence disadvantage. An Export Sales Reporting program can level the playing field making Canada more competitive. See how we do it: saskoilseeds.com/export-sales-r…

kids these days don’t take flintstones vitamins and it shows

Chuck Norris held a 183-10-2 record and was a 6x world champion in full contact bare knuckle karate. On top of that, he beat heavyweight kickboxing world champion Joe Lewis 3 consecutive times and also had a brutal sparring match with undefeated kickboxing world champion, Bill Superfoot Wallace, that lasted an hour and a half. According to Wallace, they practically stalemated and "beat the crap out of each other". Chuck was trained in kickboxing/boxing by Benny The Jet Urquidez and was also trained in BJJ by the Gracies and Machados for 20 years. Even being able to submit Carlos Machado himself on occasion. Chuck had a 315 Ibs bench press at 180 lbs bodyweight and was said to have a grip back in the day that nobody could escape from because he was so strong. Even Jean Claude Van Damme said he'd never fight Chuck Norris, despite being a kickboxing world champion himself. Chuck held a 10th degree black belt in Chun Kuk Do, a 9th degree black belt in Tang Soo Do, an 8th degree black belt in Taekwondo, a 5th degree black belt in Karate, a 3rd degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and a black belt in Judo. Rest in peace, Chuck!

We are pleased to announce Bruce Burrows as Executive Director of GGC, as of April 1. With decades of experience in transportation, infrastructure and government relations, he will help advance policies that support a competitive grain sector. More 👇: tinyurl.com/4k5b7zb8

JUST IN: The most irreversible consequence of this war is not happening in Tehran. It is happening in a barn in Iowa. A farmer is standing over a kitchen table looking at two seed catalogues. One is corn. One is soybeans. Corn needs 180 pounds of nitrogen per acre. Nitrogen costs $610 per ton on the CBOT March futures settlement as of yesterday, up 35 percent in a month. Soybeans fix their own nitrogen from the atmosphere through root bacteria called rhizobia. They need nothing from the Strait of Hormuz. The farmer is choosing soybeans. Millions of acres are choosing soybeans. And once the planter rolls into the field, the choice cannot be reversed until next year. USDA projected corn at roughly 94 million acres for 2026, down from 98.8 million. Soybeans at 85 million, up from 81.2 million. Those projections were published February 19, before urea surged past $683 at New Orleans. The actual shift will be larger. USDA Prospective Plantings reports March 31. By then the seeds will be in the ground. This is the transmission channel the world is not watching. A 21-mile strait enforced by provincial commanders with sealed radio orders just rewrote the planting economics of 90 million acres of the most productive farmland on Earth. Not through sanctions. Not through diplomacy. Through the price of a single molecule that corn cannot grow without and soybeans do not need. Now follow the cascade. The Renewable Fuel Standard mandates 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol annually. That consumes roughly 43 percent of the entire US corn crop. The mandate is set by the EPA. It does not flex when corn acres shrink. It is inelastic demand consuming a fixed share of a declining supply. When supply tightens against a fixed mandate, the remaining corn reprices upward. Corn above $5 per bushel compresses every margin downstream. The US cattle herd stands at 86.2 million head, a 75-year low per USDA NASS. Poultry and pork operations face compression from higher corn prices. Feed is the single largest cost in livestock production. When feed reprices, protein reprices. When protein reprices, every grocery shelf in America absorbs the increase. This is the protein cascade. Corn to feed to meat to eggs to dairy to the checkout counter. Each link tightens because the link before it tightened. The originating cause is a urea molecule that cannot transit a strait because a provincial commander’s sealed orders say it cannot. The farmer did not start this war. The farmer cannot end it. The farmer responds to the price on the screen and the biology of the two crops in front of him. Corn needs the molecule. Soybeans do not. At $610 the arithmetic is settled. The planter rolls. The season is locked. Israel just authorised the assassination of every Iranian official on sight. The US has spent $16.5 billion. South Pars is burning. The Fed is holding rates because oil inflation will not break. Gold touched $5,000. Bitcoin is bleeding. China is running exercises near Taiwan. Sri Lanka shut down on Wednesdays. And underneath all of it, a man in a barn is making the decision that determines whether four billion people pay more for food this year. He has never heard of the Mosaic Doctrine. He does not know what a sealed contingency packet is. He knows what nitrogen costs. And he is planting soybeans. Full analysis - open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

"My kids spent $850 on Xbox Minecraft coins to my account... and this is the lesson I taught them"

CBC's Deana Sumanac-Johnson speaks with Andre Harpe -- Chair of the Canadian Canola Growers Association, on the rising cost of fertilizers amid Iran war | CBC.ca cbc.ca/player/play/vi…

From token to trusted: the rise of women leadership in agricultural organizations vist.ly/4uwpp #cdnag #westcdnag #womeninag

“Yet banning these [crop protection] tools makes no sense from a scientific standpoint. The ones we use are fully vetted. The alternative to them is more agricultural tillage,” writes Gerrid Gust on why crop protection barriers are harming farmers. 🔗: bit.ly/3MJbzNG

$1500 guaranteed 50/50 thanks to B-MO’s Lounge. See you at the AGT Centre @SaskForum @MondayNooner @19ershockeyclub

I heard chickpea acres are expanding, but really?

@AllamFarmer Distance to processors, need for specialized equipment so need a minimum number of acres, also a factor

Farmers can be compassionate to the Ukrainian people & still want THE REMOVAL of a federal fertilizer tariff! A tariff that contributes to supply chain challenges! A tariff that punishes our farmers! A tariff that does not accomplish its intention! ITS OK TO FEEL THAT WAY!

Pet peeve from the last two days. Grain companies telling farmers they can’t lock in futures on active trading months with lots of volume AND telling farmers they can’t work targets in the overnight session.

@Darcytwheat @wheatgrowers I don’t know about legend, but thank you. We stand on the shoulders of giants 🙏

@wheatgrowers @gustgd 👏👏👏👏👏👏

A great article from a Wheat Grower legend reinforcing why we need science-based rules and regs and cautions us that trade with the EU is fraught with non-tariff barriers. Great job @gustgd!