The June 25 seeded acreage report from Statistics Canada may not contain many price movers, but it does show interesting trends.
Canaryseed was arguably the biggest surprise. In April, the agency’s seeding intentions report showed canaryseed dropping to just 190,000 acres. Many observers, including me, believed the acreage would not actually be that low.
Instead, the June 25 report shows a mere 165,000 acres, a drop of 45 percent from last year and the lowest number since the 1980s.
Saskatchewan is the world’s largest exporter of canaryseed and the official stocks-to-use ratio is already tight, so logic would say that prices will have to rise.
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Unfortunately, the market to date has not been logical.
Some producers have been holding canaryseed for years, waiting to cash in, and therefore no one truly knows the level of on-farm stocks. Nor do we know if the marketplace will pay up if supplies actually become difficult to source.
Prairie-wide flax acreage of more than 1.1 million acres isn’t a surprise, but it’s amazing to see the rapid drop in Manitoba, where acreage is down 45 percent from last year. Not too many years ago, Manitoba grew most of the nation’s flax. Now it’s down to just 85,000 acres.
Incredibly, Alberta now grows more flax than Manitoba. Alberta acreage has increased by 80 percent from last year hitting 90,000 acres. Saskatchewan remains the flax king with 960,000 acres, an increase of more than 20 percent from last year.
China is now a major customer for Canadian flax, and the western Prairies have a freight advantage for shipping out of Vancouver. As well, flax in Manitoba has probably been affected by the big switch to soybeans.
Field pea prices have been strong, but the acreage response has been tepid. At 3.37 million acres, peas are up only slightly from last year.
Meanwhile, lentils are down only slightly from last year at 2.45 million acres. This spring’s surge in red lentil prices encouraged more of that lentil class to go in the ground.
Although still minor at 205,000 acres, chickpeas continue to gain acreage. Chickpea prices have declined the last two years, but more producers are becoming comfortable with the agronomics, particularly the disease control.
Interestingly, the 20,000 acres of chickpeas grown last year in Alberta have disappeared from Statistics Canada’s numbers for this year. Lentils just barely exist in Alberta at only 90,000 acres.
Oats are up 37 per cent in Saskatchewan to 1.8 million acres, and there has been a 14 per cent increase in Alberta to 730,000 acres. Meanwhile, Manitoba’s oat acreage has dropped 10 percent to 450,000 acres.
At nearly 1.1 million, Manitoba’s soybean acreage is now larger than the combined acres for barley, oats, flax and peas. As well, Manitoba’s grain corn acreage is up by more than 20 per cent to 365,000 acres.
Saskatchewan’s soybean acreage is estimated at 170,000 acres. Analysts and seed companies believe many millions of acres of soybeans and grain corn will be grown on the Prairies in the years ahead.
If those projections are correct, the acreage has to come from somewhere. The 19.7 million acres that we see this year in canola and the 24 million acres in spring wheat and durum may well be trimmed back.
The domestic canola crushing industry must be watching the trend with great interest.
