Tony Brummelhuis’s experience speaks volumes about the state of Western Canada’s soft white wheat industry.
The Brooks, Alta., farmer is a director of the Alberta Soft Wheat Producers Commission.
Despite that, he hasn’t grown soft wheat for six or seven years. Low prices for that crop have prompted him to grow hard red spring wheat on his irrigated land.
But this year that’s changing.
“I’m jumping back in,” he said over his cell phone last week as he took a short break from seeding.
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“The prices are a lot closer and with the higher yielding varieties we have now, it should be an advantage to me to seed soft wheat again.”
Brummelhuis isn’t the only one returning to the soft white wheat fold.
Industry officials say seeded area could jump by 30 percent this year to around 40,000 acres, almost all of it in southern Alberta.
That would be a big turnaround for an industry that has been in a steady decline since the mid-1990s.
Ten years ago, farmers seeded 275,000 acres to soft white wheat. That plummeted to 25,000 acres by 2001, as low wheat prices led farmers to switch to other commodities, before climbing back up to about 33,000 acres last year.
“There’s a sense of optimism around the industry,” said Andy Kovacs, executive director of the soft wheat commission. “Farmers definitely seem a little bit happier about things.”
The renewed interest in soft wheat is due to a couple of factors, both related to producers’ profits.
First, the price spread between soft white and hard red spring as reflected in the Canadian Wheat Board’s pool return outlook has narrowed.
The 2003-04 PRO shows a spread of $17 a tonne between No. 1 Canada Western soft white spring and
No. 1 CW red spring 11.5 percent protein, compared with a spread of $33 a tonne in the 2002-03 PRO.
Second, a new variety available this year called AC Andrew carries with it an 18 percent yield advantage over the standard variety AC Reed.
That means soft white wheat growers can shoot for yields of around 100 bushels an acre on their irrigated land, compared with 60-70 bu. of hard red spring.
The combination of a narrower price spread and higher yields is making soft white look attractive again.
“I’m one guy who thinks that and I’m sure there’s a few more like me,” said Brummelhuis.
Using a conservative average yield estimate of 72 bu., or two tonnes, per acre, this year’s seeded area will produce a crop of around 80,000 tonnes.
Virtually all of the soft white wheat is consumed domestically by four millers in Western Canada – Robin Hood Multifoods in Saskatoon, Ellison Milling of Lethbridge, Rogers Foods of Chilliwack, B.C., and ADM Milling of Calgary.
The flour is used in the production of cookies, cakes, pancakes and pastries and as a soup extender.
Graham Worden of the CWB said because of the limited supplies, there has been no serious effort by the board to develop export markets.
“The customer base for regular sales of soft white spring has petered out over the last number of years,” he said. “If there’s no supply, it’s hard to maintain demand and there’s just no supply.”
For example, Canada used to sell soft white to the Philippines, but that country now buys from the United States, which produces huge volumes of it in Washington and Oregon.
Filipino buyers might well prefer to buy from Canada so they could pick up both soft spring and hard red spring with one stop at Vancouver.
“But if we can’t supply them steadily throughout the crop year, they’re just not interested,” said Worden.
He acknowledged it’s a bit of a Catch-22 for producers. No markets are being developed because they’re not growing soft white spring, but why would they grow it if there isn’t a market?
