Manitoba farmers hopeful for 2023 after painful hits to bottom line in 2022

Walter Smith's farm's roots date back to the 1800s, and it's survived through extreme weather and challenging markets, but nothing else quite like 2022. 

Smith said farming in 2022 carried the "highest stakes" he has seen, with input costs sitting 30 to 40 per cent higher than ever before on his land outside Pilot Mound, about 150 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg. 

Trying to recoup those costs is a challenge because the prices of fertilizer, fuel, equipment and repairs are so high, and those costs are not always reflected in crop prices, he said.

He hopes returns start to even out going into 2023.

"I need to recoup some of that added cost, but … you just take what the market gives you," Smith said.

People across Canada and the world have been feeling the impact of inflation over the past two years, Keystone Agricultural Producers president Bill Campbell said.

"It's just a difficult scenario to get your head around on how much increase in expenses there is on the farm now," he said. "It's startling … what the prices are at this stage."

Campbell estimates that many producers have seen operation costs double.

"We live in a global marketplace and as these prices are set in that marketplace, farmers are unable to pass along these increased costs and … must absorb them against their bottom line," he said.

Campbell is encouraged by Bill C 234 reaching the third reading in the House of Commons. It contains provisions to make grain drying and heating of barns exempt from the carbon tax.

"I just don't have a clear crystal ball on what the future looks like for some of these scenarios, but it is a very challenging time in the agriculture sector with regards to forecasting what it will be like."

Fifth-generation farmer James Jasper raises purebred cattle and raises crops on about 750 acres of land just north of Hartney, about 250 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

The southwestern Manitoba farmer said 2022 may be one of his most expensive years ever.

Jasper described farmers as "price takers," because they do not decide the worth of grain or livestock and are left to the whims of the market.