Wheat may soon reclaim its crown, because Canadian farmers are expected to plant significantly more of it this spring.
Total wheat acres will to jump 16.2 percent this year compared to 2007, based on Statistics Canada acreage intentions survey released April 21. Durum will be the big winner, rising to 5.9 million acres, a 22.5 percent increase over the 4.8 million planted in 2007.
Spring wheat acres are expected to increase nine percent, according to a telephone survey of 16,000 farmers in late March.
Statistics Canada estimates spring wheat acres to be 16.58 million this year, up from 15.2 million in 2007.
Read Also
Poilievre promises EV action and calls for canola compensation
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre promises EV action and calls for canola compensation
While higher than last year, the spring wheat acres are slightly below the five-year prairie average of 17 million acres.
The wheat increase was not a surprise because most analysts were expecting higher wheat prices to produce more acres.
Most of the acreage intentions in the survey were similar to analyst’s predictions, except for canola, which saw a minimal increase of 0.5 percent from 2007.
“The canola number was definitely in the low end,” said Errol Anderson, of Pro Market Communications in Calgary. Most analysts were predicting an acreage gain closer to three percent.
The predicted drop in barley acres, down 14.1 percent down from 2007, caught the attention of Ken Ball from Union Securities in Winnipeg.
“The cattle industry is going to look at that number and just groan. They’re not going to be happy to see a number that low,” he said.
Also losing acreage, as expected, was oats. Oat planting intentions are down about one million acres from last year, for an acreage loss of 17 percent.
“The net returns for oats … has been pretty poor, relative to other crops,” said Randy Strychar, an oat analyst with Ag Commodity Research in Vancouver. He said the price of oats went in the tank just as the survey was coming out, so that likely pushed its number down.
The analysts were in agreement that because of the extreme volatility in the markets, planting intentions should be taken with a large grain of salt.
As prices have swung wildly in the last six weeks, so have seeding intentions.
“Top end wheat prices in the last month have dropped 20 percent,” said Anderson.
“I suspect that there will be more canola acres and less wheat.”
On top of price swings, another factor in planting intentions will be soil moisture.
Last weekend, southwestern Saskatchewan received a dump of snow equal to 30 millimetres of water.
The moisture was needed in that part of the Prairies, but the wet conditions and the cold weather predicted for the remainder of April might affect seeding decisions there.
