It means he’s earning $341 per acre on a projected yield of 125 bushels/acre at $110 per tonne but his costs including labour are $394 per acre.

He planted 270 acres. That’s a $53 loss per acre, which translates into a $13,500 cut in the pay he and his brother Glen will take to the bank this year.

"If it carries on like this we’ll cut back on corn to 80 or 90 acres," he said. "We’ll move into the hay business."

The situation is worse than even Willows figures. The Ontario Corn Producers Association figures that the province-wide cost of production is a minimum of $450 per acre, although that figure has a return on investment factored in.

Highly respected corn producer Alain Leduc used to plant 1,300 acres of corn. The Moose Creek farmer cut back to 1,000 acres this year and will only plant 300 to 400 acres next year because he secured low-cost and no-cost fertilizer for those fields.

At the current price of $100 to $110 per tonne of corn, Leduc is looking to produce other crops. "To hell with it (corn). It’s too much risk," he said. "I can’t afford to lose $60 to $80 per acre on every acre of corn I grow," he said. On 1,000 acres that’s an $80,000 loss.

Grain purchaser Catharine Rutters, at the Chesterville-based Rutters Elevators, says that prices next year aren’t going to be any different than this year. "Something drastic will have to happen" to increase prices, she said. Typically, a farmer hopes to earn $140 a tonne for corn, not $100 (the Sept, 27 price), she said. "Prices aren’t pretty. There’s a lot of talk by a lot of people who aren’t going to grow a single kernel of corn next year."

She added that many corn producers this year won’t be earning enough to cover this year’s fertilizer bill.