Alberta Farmer Express publishes a daily grain price report for Western Canada, refreshing posted elevator bids each market day for Prairie growers managing cash sales against ICE canola and Minneapolis spring wheat futures.

The online tracker lists cash bids from country elevators across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Coverage spans the principal Prairie crops: Canada Western Red Spring wheat, Canada Western Amber Durum, canola, malting and feed barley, oats, yellow and green peas, red and green lentils, flax and canary seed. Bids are posted in Canadian dollars per tonne and per bushel where applicable.

What does the daily print cover?

Each market-day update captures the spot bids handlers are willing to pay at a given delivery point, plus the futures month the bid is referenced against. For canola, the benchmark is the ICE Futures canola contract. For wheat, the reference is the Minneapolis Grain Exchange spring wheat contract for CWRS and the ICE milling wheat contract for durum. Pulse crops typically price off Saskatchewan and Alberta cash markets reported by individual companies rather than exchange-traded futures.

Readers scanning the table can compare bids across multiple delivery points in a single sitting. That matters because basis — the gap between the local cash bid and the nearby futures — varies by elevator, by rail line, and by shipping window. A 50-cent-per-bushel basis spread between two elevators 80 kilometres apart is a real number in a producer's margin calculation, and it can flip within a week when a shipper fills or empties a capacity slot.

Who posts the bids?

The handlers reporting into the AFE daily include Viterra, Cargill, Richardson International, Louis Dreyfus Company, G3 Canada, Parrish & Heimbecker, Paterson Grain and a long tail of independent and farmer-owned elevators. Bids reflect what each company needs to attract tonneage that week against its export program, domestic crusher demand, and rail capacity.

The Canadian Grain Commission publishes weekly data on producer deliveries, stocks on farm and visible supply, but those numbers lag the market by a week. The daily AFE print is the real-time complement: a snapshot of what a farmer can book today.

Why growers watch it hour by hour

Cash bids at the local elevator move with three things: the futures price in Winnipeg or Minneapolis, the Canada-U.S. exchange rate, and the basis set by the local handler. A 25-cent move in Minneapolis wheat or a $5-per-tonne move in ICE canola resets posted bids before noon Central. A one-cent move in the Canadian dollar shifts the Canadian-dollar equivalent of any U.S.-denominated export signal.

For a producer holding 5,000 bushels of CWRS in on-farm storage, the daily print is the working tool. Deliver now or wait? Lock a basis-fixed contract with a nearby delivery window, or sign a deferred-pricing agreement and leave the futures leg open? Those calls are made against the numbers in the AFE table, not against seasonal intuition.

Reading limits

The AFE report is a price sheet, not a forecast. Bids reflect what handlers are willing to pay at a specific delivery window, typically the nearby month. They do not project where prices will be at harvest, nor do they adjust for grade, protein or dockage outside the posted specification. Producers pricing higher-protein CWRS or low-green-pea lots need to add the relevant premium or discount to the printed number.

The report also does not capture intra-day changes once posted. A handler that raises its bid at 1 p.m. after a futures rally will not appear in that day's print; the update will surface the next morning.

Forward read

Daily cash bids into the 2025-26 crop year will hinge on three moving parts: ICE canola's direction against soybean oil and palm oil, Minneapolis spring wheat's spread against Chicago and Kansas City wheat, and the basis posture of the two largest Prairie handlers as they chase or ration tonneage against the export program. AFE's daily table is where those three pieces show up together for the working farmer.