Hursh Consulting & Communications Inc.

A farmer from central Saskatchewan emailed me farm chemical pricing comparisons he recently compiled. He got price quotes from a farm input supplier down in the peanut growing region of the U.S. and found a lot of the prices considerably cheaper than what we’re paying in Canada. Note that the U.S. quotes are in U.S. dollars. Plus, freight is always a factor that also needs to be considered. On generic Bravo fungicide, this Saskatchewan farmer says his best local price is $16.49 a litre. He says Farmers of North America is quoting a price of $11.57 a litre. Meanwhile, he has an American price quote of less than $9 per litre for Bravo while a generic American product is only $6.77. On Reglone desiccant, the local price, the FNA price and the price in the U.S. are all very similar in the $26 to $27 a litre range. However, there’s a U.S. generic product that’s only about $18 a litre. Prices aren’t always better in the U.S. Assure 11 wild oat herbicide is in the $20 to $22 a litre range in Saskatchewan, while the American quote is over $30. There has been some progress on narrowing the cross border price gap on crop protection products, but the numbers show that in many cases we remain at a competitive disadvantage. I’m Kevin Hursh.