By Rod Nickel
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, June 25 (Reuters) – Canadian farmers planted less wheat, but more canola, this spring than Statistics Canada estimated earlier, the government agency said in a report on Tuesday that offered few surprises.
Statscan said farmers planted 25.9 million acres of all-wheat, the most in 12 years, but less than its previous estimate on April 24 of 26.6 million acres. The trade was expecting Statscan to report 26.2 million acres, according to a Reuters poll.
Farmers seeded 19.7 million acres of canola, down 8 percent from 2012’s record high, but up from Statscan’s previous estimate of 19.1 million acres. It matched the average trade estimate.
Read Also
U.S. grains: Soybean futures set two-week high on US weather worry, soyoil rally
Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures touched a two-week high on Friday on worries that heat may threaten U.S. crops and expectations that the country’s biofuel policy would boost demand for soyoil, analysts said.
“(It’s) a giant yawn,” said Ken Ball, a commodity futures and options broker at PI Financial Corp. “The report is pretty much as expected.”
Canada is the world’s sixth-largest wheat grower and the biggest producer of canola.
Pockets of land that were too wet to plant this spring may have trimmed farmers’ plans for sowing wheat, Ball said.
A big Canadian wheat harvest would offset some of the problems with the U.S. wheat crop, particularly wet conditions in the spring wheat area of North Dakota and dryness in the southern winter wheat region, Ball said.
ICE Canada November canola futures showed little reaction to the report and were down slightly around mid-morning.
Ball estimated that nearly one-third of Canada’s canola crop is sitting in wet conditions and will require warm, dry weather to develop. Severe flooding hit southern Alberta last week, but farmers do not yet have a clear idea of potential damage.
Statistics Canada estimated record-large soybean plantings of 4.6 million acres, more than expected, and record-large corn seedings of 3.6 million acres, a little below expectations.
For the first time Statscan estimated soybean plantings in the top grain-growing province of Saskatchewan, at 170,000 acres.
Farmers planted an estimated 7.2 million acres of barley and 3.4 million acres of oats, within the range of expectations.
Statscan surveyed 25,000 farmers from May 27 to June 10. Its next major report on Aug. 21 will estimate crop production.
