WINNIPEG – The Cinderella crop will lose a lot of seeding dates with farmers this year as her older cereal stepsisters cut in for a dance.
According to a Statistics Canada planting intentions report released last week, farmers will likely seed a lot fewer acres to canola this year in favor of lower-maintenance and high-priced cereal crops.
Thirty-one percent fewer acres, in fact, a figure that surprised Paul Bullock, director of weather and crop surveillance at the Canadian Wheat Board.
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“I’ll be candid. (Wheat estimates) were a little more than we thought, and the crop projected for the oilseeds was more than we thought as well,” Bullock said.
But Tracy Johnston at the Canola Council of Canada said the industry wasn’t caught off guard.
“It might be a little lower than we anticipated but I think that the industry was sort of ready for a fairly low number,” she said, adding United Grain Growers released a similar estimate several weeks ago.
Johnston said there is some concern in the industry about having enough supply. Last year, crushers used 2.5 million tonnes of seed while exporters shipped almost four million tonnes.
This year, she said, new crushing facilities in Canada and the United States will need about 3.3 million more tonnes of canola.
But Bruce Dalgarno, president of the Manitoba Canola Growers Association, said a high carryover of close to one million tonnes should help ease the situation.
“If we get a good season and good yields, we shouldn’t have too many problems,” Johnston said. “But if we get a bad year and there’s a lot of green seed, and an early frost, there could be some problems.”
Bullock noted the survey was done in late March. Since then, wheat prices have “just absolutely blown the lids off everything” and cold weather and flooding have blown many good seeding plans.
“Farmers have had some problems with later seeding dates the past few years,” Bullock said.
“Many of them will remember those sorts of problems and if they get pushed too late, maybe they will abandon wheat in favor of something that they’re sure will mature prior to a fall frost.”
Other farmers said higher canola prices could change their minds.
Bill Toews, who is planning to seed canola on about 20 percent of his 2,000 acres near Kane, Man., said higher relative prices could tempt him back to Cinderella’s arms.
Attractive price
“If I’m able to pre-price a portion of my canola at prices that I think are attractive enough, I’ll probably increase that acreage a bit,” he said, adding $10 per bushel at the farmgate would swing him around.
Bullock said another factor is the summerfallow estimates, which were well below what he had expected. He predicted more acres will be left unplanted than anticipated.
Dalgarno said he is growing about 300 acres less of canola this year because of stretched rotations last season.
“A lot of guys pushed the extra field into canola in ’94-’95 and it’s catching up to them in the rotation this year,” he noted.
