Guides

How grain trades out here

Written for growers, and free. No sign-in, no email for a PDF. If something here is wrong or missing, call the grain desk and tell us.

Grain

Malt barley and feed barley: what separates them
The Canadian Grain Commission divides barley into three classes by end use, and "feed barley" isn’t one of them. What decides whether your barley is selected for malt, why the protein window is the buyer's rule and not the grading standard's, and why only about a fifth of malting barley is ever selected.
Bushels to tonnes: how Canadian grain prices convert
A tonne of barley is 45.93 bushels, wheat 36.74, oats 64.84 on the Canadian 34 lb bushel. The factors for every prairie crop, the arithmetic, and the US-table trap that misquotes Canadian oats by 6 percent.

What it costs to truck grain in Alberta
What sets the cost of trucking grain: distance, load, timing, fuel and truck availability, and how freight comes off your grain price. Plus Giddyupp's 132 recorded hauls from 2013 to 2018, with the method: a dated record, not today's quotes.
The fuel tax did not come back September 8: the suspension now runs to January 31, 2027
The federal fuel excise tax, suspended since April 20, 2026, was due back on September 8. On September 2 Finance Canada extended the suspension to January 31, 2027, then half rate on diesel (2 cents a litre) to March 31 and the full 4 cents from April 1, 2027. What it means for grain freight.

What a grain broker does, and who pays
A grain broker finds the buyer, negotiates the price, and writes the terms down, without ever owning the grain. The buyer pays the farmer directly and pays the broker's fee on its own invoice. Here's how that works at Giddyupp.