It's been a week of spectacular weather in southwestern Ontario with harvest continuing. As of Oct. 21, the Grain Farmers of Ontario estimate that 82% of Ontario soybeans have been harvested and 5% of Ontario corn.

You're a loyal scribe; we managed to finish the soybean harvest on Oct. 22, and hopefully I'll be able to get a quick turnaround time and get into corn. More good weather is predicted into the end of October. It almost makes you think that we will pay for this at some point in the future.

Markets this past week have continued to stagger as the trading algorithms sloughed off their risk tendencies surrounding geopolitics. At least it seemed so. The market rally that topped out on Sept. 2 as of now was the invitation everybody should have taken. Needless to say, nobody knows the future, and as we look ahead, hopefully, we can expect that post-harvest rally in grain prices.

It is unlikely, but as usual, nobody knows. 2026 was set up as a tough year from the beginning. You can remember last spring how we were lamenting the higher costs for fertilizer and fuel, and all of that came true. In fact, when you have diesel fuel at $2.75 a liter, how much higher can Canadian farmers take? It's hard to say, of course, because war in the Gulf between Iran and the United States could ignite at any time. There's even the thought coming from the American President that it might heat up after the midterm elections. As hard as that is to believe, it would set these diesel prices even higher.

Help is not on the way for Canadian farmers with their energy prices. However, almost on cue, we got more word coming from the American farm subsidy theme park last week that American farmers are going to be subsidized for their high diesel costs during harvest. US Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rawlings announced last Monday that the USDA will make $8 billion in payments to farmers through a Harvest Fuel Relief Program. In addition to the $12 billion American farmers have already received through the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program. Needless to say, you can expect none of this from the Canadian government.

In many ways that's a shame, but it reflects the shambles that our Canadian agricultural policy is in. I do not criticize the American government for what they are doing for American farmers. I have always said, over a span of almost 40 years in writing this column, that the American government always takes care of its farmers, and 2026 is a big example of that.

Keep in mind there are costs to this, and it will be reflected by a recapitalization of the American subsidies into their fixed cost: land and equipment. However, it is a cost that American governments over a period of time have always deemed worth it, while Canadian governments have not.

It's a long story, and I don't really want to start in on it again. At least last week we got good news about our country. In the biggest news of the year, Albertans rejected separation by voting 75% to remain in Canada. That fact alone boosted the Canadian dollar about a penny this past week. Unfortunately, that will have a bearish effect on Ontario and Quebec grain prices at a time when futures have been weak.

With regard to grain futures prices, soybeans recently saw lower trade in nine of the past 10 sessions while soybean harvest was advancing. On the corn side of the equation, we hit about $5.50 on Sept. 1 when funds had amassed record longs. However, they've been selling ever since, and December corn is now $0.88 lower than it was on Sept. 1. As I said last week, the bears have arrived.

It is not the best scenario as we stare into the last two months of 2026. For Canadian farmers, we have had very high costs and now lower prices, even though there was a big opportunity to price grain higher earlier in August and September. Our American friends had the same type of scenario, except for this constant injection of capital into their bank accounts from the American farm subsidy theme park.

This will continue for American farmers, and from a Canadian perspective, you just have to look the other way and hope for a surprising post-harvest rally in grain prices. Generally speaking, we usually get it, but maybe not after a late-summer gift of higher prices caused mainly by geopolitics. Needless to say, prices are still higher than they were a year ago.

A week from now, we will be staring down the American midterm elections. That certainly might be an inflection point for more geopolitical action affecting our markets. Having said that, we have the second largest corn crop in history and the largest soybean crop in history coming off in the United States. The crops are big in Ontario and Quebec as well. The challenge for Canadian farmers will be to get through the next few months with these high input costs and lower grain prices. However, with big crops on both sides of the border and a lot of uncertainty still hanging over the world, we may have to be patient. Risk management never grows old. Daily market intelligence will remain key.

Philip Shaw can be reached at philip@philipshaw.ca

Follow him on social platform X @Agridome

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