As Canada's tracks are getting ready to transport grain all around the country, producers and those in the industry are taking a look at what might influence price day-to-day.

That includes international events, weather, and consumer demand.

Jon Dreidger, the Vice President at Leftfield Commodity Research, detailed some of those factors.

"There are many things that are working on markets. We've been really dry across a good portion of Western Canada and some places in Western Canada have been as poor as 2021, a lot of other places are not quite that poor, but certainly below average. Other areas are doing relatively better but certainly, we're looking at a smaller crop across Western Canada than maybe people were thinking and hoping for in the spring."

The ongoing war in Ukraine is still a factor for the agriculture industry, especially following the collapse of the grain deal between itself and Russia.

"The war in Ukraine is a constant source of uncertainty. As that sort of ebbs and flows and maybe escalates," said Dreidger, "I think that brings into question how easy it is to access grain from important suppliers to global markets."

It's not just Canadian weather that'll affect prices, as a strong harvest across the southern border will warp demand.

"Now kind of on the day-to-day, US weather in the Midwest has generally been pretty good as we've been getting into August. So to help finish off the corn crop and for soybeans, we don't grow a whole lot of corn and soybeans in Western Canada," said Dreidger, "But certainly those markets are so influential on things like canola and feed barley and all other crops."

"That's kind of been a little bit of a damper on some of these markets. As always at this time of year we're trying to get a sense of what the final crop size will be, lots of moving parts, but those are certainly some of the things that markets have been responding to here over the last couple of weeks and will likely continue to do so until there's some kind of confidence in what the final crop size will be, which is uncertain, but combines are rolling. So before too long, we'll have a better sense of that."

Dreidger says plenty of people are now just waiting to see exactly how western Canada does for crops.

"It's really hard to really pin down what that crop will be in Western Canada. A lot of interesting curiosity as more and more crops get harvested here over the next few weeks about how that crop looks because it is so incredibly variable not just across regions but within even small local areas. That's something we're really keen to see how it unfolds here over the next few weeks."