It seems that when our friends in North Dakota think about oilseeds these days, the crop in mind is soybeans, not canola.
In the planting intentions report released March 31, farmers in North Dakota told the United States Department of Agriculture that they intend to plant 41 percent more soybeans than last year, raising the total to 4.15 million acres.
They also intend to grow 20 percent less canola, reducing its area to 830,000 acres.
The drop in canola interest is surprising considering the strong interest there in biodiesel projects.
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North Dakota Biodiesel Inc., owned by German interests, said last spring it would build a crushing plant and biodiesel plant in
Minot using canola from about 350,000 acres. However those plans were dropped when Archer Daniels Midlands announced in October plans to build a 190 million litre per year biodiesel plant next to its crushing plant at Velva. It would consume about 250,000 tonnes of canola a year. The German proposal also suffered from its inability to qualify for federal assistance.
The North Dakota Farmers Union has revived the idea of a
Minot plant. Now called Dakota Skies, the project has the backing of Bio Economy Development of New York and Uhde, part of the German steel conglomerate Thyssen Krupp. It is seeking additional investors and hopes to have a plant operating by 2007 producing about 120 million litres annually, according to Prairie Business magazine.
If both plants were built, their demand would almost equal the state’s current canola production.
North Dakota is the only U.S. state that seeds a significant amount of canola, but unlike in Canada, the yellow flowered crop’s popularity is not in a long-term upward trend.
In the three years 2000 to 2002, farmers in the state consistently seeded about 1.3 million acres, but then area dropped, hitting a low of 780,000 in 2004. It jumped back to 1.04 million last year and this year 830,000 acres are expected.
But expanding soybean area dwarfs canola. If seeding intentions become reality, North Dakota this year will have double the soybean acreage it did in 2000.
The U.S. farm bill’s favourable support of soybeans and improved short-season varieties have spurred the crop’s popularity.
Also, spring wheat in the state suffers severe fusarium problems and stagnant yields, and soybeans are a good way to break the wheat disease cycle.
Across the northern plains, on either side of the border, cropping patterns have changed in the past 20 years.
But where Canadian prairie producers have moved to canola and pulse crops, their American neighbours have taken up the crops associated with the U.S. Midwest, soybeans and corn.
In the more immediate context, the planned 20 percent reduction in North Dakota canola acres is good news in a market burdened by surplus supply.
It shows a deeper cut than that in the Saskatchewan Agriculture seeding outlook, released April 9, which sees a five percent drop in canola area in the province. Agriculture Canada’s survey of farmers’ seeding intentions comes out April 25.
North Dakota farmers also said they planned to cut spring wheat area by about six percent, to 6.5 million acres, and durum by 39 percent to 1.2 million.
The Saskatchewan outlook, based on the expectations of its crop reporters around the province, sees a three percent increase in spring wheat area to 9.26 million acres and a 13 percent decrease in durum area, to 4.25 million acres.
