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Canadian canola, soybean and potato crops took some of the toughest hits in a “brutal year” for farming as weather menaced harvests and trade issues shrank demand and pricing.

Heavy rain and colder temperatures in the East, overly dry conditions in the West and an early snowfall in the Prairies slowed the growing season, leaving record amounts of potatoes unharvested in fields and pushing canola and soybean production to their lowest levels in years.

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It's been a very challenging year no doubt and there's stress in the industry J.P. Gervais, chief economist for Farm Credit Canada

Meantime, global trade wars and diplomatic frictions between Canada and China took a toll on both exports and pricing of canola and soybeans, leaving canola farmers with a record oversupply of the oilseed.

“It’s been a very challenging year no doubt and there’s stress in the industry,” said J.P. Gervais, chief economist for Farm Credit Canada, a major lender to the farming sector. “We’re seeing the early impact of really difficult weather coast to coast and then there were market access issues. Farmers have had lower production and exports and in most cases prices that were flat or down with little positive movement elsewhere to make up for it.”