Farmers might both boost and pull back on canola production this year, say some well-informed growers.
That’s because their seeding and management decisions may go in opposite directions.
“The acres may go in, but the inputs might not go with it,” said Dale Gryba, vice-president of the Manitoba Canola Growers Association.
“If I’ve got the seed, and I’ve got the $25,000 (to pay the) bill, I’m going to put it on. But a guy might cut back on the amount of nitrogen he puts on, and only spray once, and that’ll cut three or four bushels (per acre) off.”
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Through the winter Canadian farmers said they intended to boost canola acreage this spring by 10 to 15 percent. That brought warnings from analysts and industry experts, who said it could flood the market if yields were good.
European experts in particular seemed worried that a glut of canola could appear this year if the world produced normal crops. Already Ukraine has been exporting canola.
This week Statistics Canada came out with its seeding intentions report, but many say farmers are particularly unsure this year about what they’ll seed, enticed by volatile and high prices for most crops.
Final acreage decisions may be made by crop-to-crop comparison shopping.
“It all has to do with price,” said Gryba. “If growers can net the most from canola, they’ll grow more canola. If they can’t, they might shift elsewhere.”
The sudden surge of wheat prices in recent weeks drew farmer interest, and perhaps acres, to that crop this spring, he said.
The comparative weakness of canola means some acres may shift from the oilseed into cereals or pulses.
Darin Egert, president of the Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association, said farmers shouldn’t cut their nitrogen fertilizer, “but I think some will.”
A bigger limiting factor on canola production may be getting fertilizer in time. Some parts of Saskatchewan already appear to be short of supply, so that may cause some seeding to be done with less than ideal fertilizer rates, or later than expected.
“In some areas it’s already tight,” said Egert. “A lot may depend on the availability of supply.”
Gryba said most farmers are committed to their rotations and won’t break them to play with acreage decisions at the last minute.
“A lot of guys around here grow half (wheat) and half (canola). They’ll continue to seed half and half, but they’ll just complain louder (about the unpromising crop),” said Gryba.
But if farmers do shift out of canola because of its weaker relative price, they might shift into barley instead of wheat.
“It’s cheap to plant, cheap to grow,” he said.
