Farming today often seems like riding a rollercoaster. Prices rise, they fall. Good news falls on the heals of bad news. Costs increase. New markets open, others dry up. Government support seems so on-again off-again. The year 2006 was no exception. Here’s Farmers Forum’s list of the 5 best and the worst 5 agriculture news items of the year.

First, the good news:

1. Corn prices rebound, ending four years of disastrous prices, netting many producers an extra $30 per tonne. But what is good news for one is bad news for another. That price increase saw downward pressure on beef prices.

2. Four new ethanol plants are proposed in eastern Ontario. The province wants to up the ethanol content of gas in 2007, so the pressure is on the province to get those plants into production. Extra benefit for beef farmers is the ethanol byproduct distillers’ grain.

3. Resilence of grassroots farmers. Despite rally fatigue, grassroot farmers show incredible ingenuity and resourcefulness, shutting down food terminals at three locations across Ontario, while conducting two tractor rallies at the Prime Minister’s house and in a gesture of good will, hand out free cheese and ice cream to visitor to Parliament Hill on Canada Day.

4. New government: It’s hard not to be pleased after 13 years of Liberal drifting without a rudder. Meantime, the Conservatives proved to have vision, though the bureaucracy is still run by too many soft-left anti-family moral relativists.

5. World Trade Talks. Canada didn’t give up supply management and talks reached an impasse. Every country hoped another country would give something up for nothing in return. But nations typically don’t send morons to the negotiating table.

6. Ontario elects eastern Ontario’s Geri Kamenz to lead the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

Now, the bad news:

1. U.S. Border. Still not open to the over 30-month cattle, which means the dairy heifer replacement market continues to hurt many dairy farmers who counted on the extra income for their families.

2. Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program. CAIS doesn’t work in times of crisis, when faced with famine, flood, disease. Therefore, CAIS doesn’t work and no replacement is in sight.

3. Dairy Farmers of Ontario board members: The 12 board members became instant enemies when to their own producers when they decided to change the system and claw back 50 per cent of quota over time. Farmers were outraged that they weren’t told.

4. Clean Water Act: It’s now a provincial law. No one knows what the regulations will be as they haven’t been written yet. But the big issue is that there’s no funding — $7 million announced is a drop in the bucket — for changes a farm may be required to make.

5. Seaway Grain Processors’ Cornwall ethanol plant is held up by more red tape and contractor re-costing of the job. After more than 10 years of planning, the more than 2,000 farmer shareholders continue to be frustrated. The annual meeting in November pegged the lastest start date for contruction as (date here).