Murray Wood: Alberta Independence is an idea whose time will never come
It seemed popular with some at the recent convention for Alberta's governing party, but Murray Wood calls the idea of Al...
This story was first published on RealAgriculture.com on Oct. 9, 2025.
With 2026 seeding decisions on many producers’ minds, IntelliFarm’s Brian Voth offered a sobering, clear-eyed take on commodity risk right now: China’s nearly 76 per cent tariff on Canadian canola is a make-or-break factor for acreage decisions. For soybeans, the lack of U.S. buying by China weighs heavily on farmers’ minds south of the border, too.
The question of whether or not to seed canola or beans in 2026 — or how much — is not a simple decision facing farmers.
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If China does not resume significant canola purchases, Voth says, “we’re going to have a lot of canola sitting around” — and no other buyer can easily absorb the volume historically shipped to China.
It’s not all bad news, as Australia’s supply potential is limited and Canadian canola remains among the few sources capable of stepping in if trade resumes, but that’s a big question mark on demand.
Still, Voth says that on a per-acre basis, canola remains one of Western Canada’s more reliable returns: “on average … it’s still one of the most consistently profitable crops that gets grown.”
However, he cautioned that acreage and output appear capped at 21 to 23 million acres without breakthrough genetic yield gains.
On the soybean front, Voth pointed to a repeat of the 2018 scenario, where South American growers dominated exports and the U.S. became a net seller.
“It would not surprise me one bit that all of a sudden U.S. soybeans are going to end up … like they did in 2018,” he says.
Meanwhile, corn remains an outlier. Despite estimates of record acreage and yields, demand has held firm. Voth questions how long such optimism is sustainable, noting how unpredictable weather or disease could tip final production outcomes sharply.
Many cropping decisions for ’26, and maybe the next several years, will come down to political developments rather than agronomic fundamentals.
“Normal” supply and demand dynamics don’t really exist right now, and prices are impacted by the political whim of the day, it seems, Voth says.
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