Farm Credit Canada's mid-year farmland values review, out of Regina on Oct. 7, says Canadian cultivated farmland values rose an average of 3.8% in the first half of 2026.

That's a downshift from the 6.0% jump in the first half of 2025. On a 12-month basis (July 2025 to June 2026), values were up 7.0%, down from 9.3% in the previous 12-month stretch.

The provincial scorecard: PEI 11.9% (yes, the potato island is out-hustling all of us), Quebec 6.2%, Alberta and Manitoba 5.3% each, Nova Scotia 3.6%, Saskatchewan 2.6%, Ontario 2.4%, New Brunswick 2.1%, and B.C. the only province in the red at down 1.9%.

FCC chief economist Craig Johnston rounds up the usual suspects: higher production costs, tighter margins, and trade and tariff uncertainty making buyers more cautious and selective. Translation: people are still shopping for land; they've just started reading the price tag before they swipe the card.

Alberta is the hot tank. Up 5.3% in six months and 9.4% year over year, with the strongest gains in the North and Peace regions, where more land actually changed hands. Down south, dryland sales were thin and irrigated acres kept setting the tone for the dryland next door, like the neighbour with the pivot who prices everybody's quarter for them.

Saskatchewan cooled. Up 2.6% for the half and 6.7% from a year earlier. Limited sales kept values steady-ish, and West Central led the province on more land for sale and appetite for the good dirt.

Zoom out and FCC says momentum since the 2020 cycle began has shifted toward the Prairies, particularly Alberta, while Ontario and B.C. are coming back to earth the hardest.

Here's the catch, and it's a big one: Johnston points out the Prairie gains were booked before a harvest season marked by ugly weather and surging diesel costs. Final yields and crop quality will shape the land market this fall and into next year. So this is a dipstick reading taken before the engine got run hard, which is a polite way of saying the oil might look different by spring.

Buying? The average parcel is drawing more selective bidding, so there's a bit more room to negotiate. Prime, well-located land still gets fought over like the last Timbit in the box.

Banking on equity? Our read, not FCC's: if land appreciation keeps cooling, the balance sheet won't paper over thin operating margins the way it did when values were climbing near double digits. Budget for cash flow, not for the land to bail you out.

What happened: On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order telling Treasury, Transportation and Agriculture to waive the off-road requirement for tax-free dyed diesel. A U.S. farmer with a bulk tank of red can now run it in the pickup on the highway, no penalty.

Canada's answer: lol, no. Using red diesel in road vehicles is still illegal here, enforced mostly by the provinces. Global News asked every provincial and territorial finance ministry whether they'd follow suit, and none said they were considering it.

Saskatchewan was the most direct. All of its fuel tax revenue is legislated for highways, and the province says opening the Farm Fuel Program to every on-road use would effectively cut the highways budget. So the tax break would come back to you as a pothole.

The enforcement is literally a dipstick. An inspector pulls you over, sticks a dipstick in the tank, and if it comes out red, you've contravened the fuel tax rules. In Saskatchewan, that carries fines of up to $10,000 for individuals and $50,000 for corporations. Ontario fines run from $200 to $1,000 per offence.

Why it matters: CFA president Keith Currie says farmers would welcome the same flexibility here, since diesel has become the line item everyone is sweating. Instead, U.S. producers just got a break Prairie producers won't see this fall. And yes, you can legally bring red fuel back across the border if you declare it. The trouble starts the second it hits a road vehicle's tank.

Olds RCMP is reminding farmers to lock down fuel this harvest after a "significant amount" of diesel was stolen from the Westview Co-op cardlock in Mountain View County on Sept. 23. The suspect vehicle: a triple-axle tanker truck. That's not petty theft; that's a logistics operation.

Police tips: more lighting, signage, checking tank levels regularly, and fuel cap locks. On the tech side, Saskatchewan's Calian Agriculture sells a digital PIN-code lock system for bulk tanks with automatic locking and monitoring.

So what: fuel and equipment sitting in remote fields during harvest are an easy target, and the charges if caught (theft, break and enter, mischief, possession, night trespass) don't refill your tank. A cheap lock beats an empty one.

The Farms and Fuels Alliance and Renewable Industries Canada have written to Prime Minister Mark Carney asking Ottawa to finalize a minimum 1.4x credit multiplier for Canadian-made ethanol under the Clean Fuel Regulations before the end of 2026.

Their gripe: U.S. ethanol collects the American 45Z production credit and then gets treated the same as domestic product here, while Canada is expected to become a billion-gallon export market for U.S. ethanol. In other words, Canadian clean fuel policy is creating demand, and American plants are filling it.

Prairie angle, our read: the loudest voices are Ontario corn growers, but any domestic ethanol plant that buys local grain, Prairie wheat included, has skin in this one. A multiplier keeps more of that demand on this side of the line.

Saskatchewan's 2027 Agriculture Student Scholarships are open. Four awards: a $6,000 grand prize and three $3,000 runner-up scholarships, funded through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.

This year's theme is solutions to challenges in agriculture. So, for a combined $15,000, Ottawa and Regina are crowdsourcing what they've been working on with considerably larger budgets. Honestly, the kids are a bargain.

The fine print: submit a three-minute video or a 1,000-word essay. You need to be in Grade 12 (or graduated within the past two school years), live in Saskatchewan, and be starting ag-related post-secondary in fall 2027. Deadline: March 1, 2027. Free essay idea: "How to keep the red diesel in the tractor and the tanker trucks out of the yard."

From the department of crops Grandpa didn't grow: Statistics Canada farm cash receipts data show cannabis was Canada's fifth-most important cash crop in 2025, at 5.8% of total crop receipts and more than $3 billion, up from $94.8 million in 2016. It now outpaces durum, barley and lentils nationally.

Before anyone re-plans the rotation: on the Prairies it's still dwarfed by grain, oilseeds and pulses, and Alberta accounts for just 3% of national cannabis receipts. Ontario and B.C. carry most of it. Somewhere a durum grower is reading that first bullet twice.