Farmscape for April 16, 2026

The Research Lead with Agri-Food Economic Systems suggests, as the costs of inputs for agricultural production rise or become less available as a result of increasing economic and geo-political volatility, farmers could be forced to take steps to reduce their dependence on external suppliers.
An Agrifood Economic Systems Independent Agri-Food Policy Note examines the implications of increased risk for agribusiness fueled by rapid price inflation and supply chain disruption driven by the rise of economic and geo-political volatility.
Research Lead Dr. Al Mussell suggests owning assets and conducting activities internally is a natural hedge against inflation.

Quote-Dr. Al Mussell-Agri-Food Economic Systems:
The  first thing that you get confronted is your working capital.
There are the inputs, whether it's fertilizer, crop inputs, feed, animal inputs, when they're a whole lot more expensive it  sucks your working capital.
The other thing that starts to happen is you start to run into shortages.
Some of your listeners experienced this during COVID.
I remember, for us at one time, it was machinery parts.
You buy two or three times as many parts as what you need just so you'll have them, when you don't know when you're going to be able to get them again.
This all soaks up cash from the farm business so there’s that financial aspect to it and then, what do you do if they're just not going to be available at any price.
In western Europe reading about some of their industrial chemical industries in parts of Germany and Switzerland for example where they're dependant of imported natural gas, some of them are just shutting down.
That includes their fertilizer industry.
Again, I suspect they're in our situation.
A lot of their fertilizer for this season is already made but next season what are they going to do?
It may simply not be available.
That takes us into asset ownership.
When you own some of the facilities that you would otherwise buy from, then it's some insulation from both the price volatility and the worry that the product would even be available to begin with.

The Agrifood Economic Systems Independent Agri-Food Policy Note can be accessed at agrifoodecon.ca.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers