Who Has the Export Data?

Who Has the Export Data?

May 27, 2026 · 1h 2m · Season 8 · Episode 20

About this episode

The episode discusses the lack of export data available to Canadian grain farmers compared to their American counterparts and the implications of this information gap.

Ryan Bonnett (ABB Solutions), Marlene Boersch (Mercantile Consulting Venture), Philip Speiss (Beeson Summers Futures Group, RBC), and John De Pape (PDQ/FARMCo) laid out the case that Canadian grain farmers are pricing canola and wheat in near-total darkness while their American counterparts receive weekly USDA export sales data and same-day alerts on large sales. Marlene Boersch's 2024 report quantified the cost at a minimum of $56.5 million per year in foregone farm income - a conservative estimate using a single data variable. The conversation moved from the technical gap to the political reality: grain companies benefit from information asymmetry and will not fix it voluntarily, which means change requires either government mandate or a grassroots farmer movement large enough to force one. Blair Goldade (Saskatchewan Crop Commissions) confirmed his team has in-person Ottawa meetings scheduled the following week, and Ryan Bonnett closed by calling for a farmer petition - the kind of organized pressure that has moved policy before.

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