To no one’s surprise, the Aug. 28 Statistics Canada report revealed that prairie farmers will produce their smallest crop in more than a decade.
But some were surprised by relatively high estimates of canola and peas in the report, which was based on a survey completed at the end of July.
However, analysts have already factored reductions into the Stats Can numbers to compensate for an August that most think has further withered the small prairie crop.
“Everyone will trim back the estimates,” said Alberta Agriculture grain market analyst Charlie Pearson.
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“Conditions, if anything, have deteriorated. It was completed in July, before the heat of August.”
The report said wheat production will be the lowest since 1988, when another drought had the Prairies in its grip.
Spring wheat production is estimated to fall to 16.8 million tonnes. That’s 3.2 million tonnes lower than the five-year average, even though prairie farmers planted seven percent more acres.
The average yield is expected to be only 29.3 bushels per acre, only slightly higher than 1989’s 27 bu./acre
average.
Fewer acres and lower yields will push durum production down to 3.1 million tonnes, compared to a five-year average of five million tonnes.
Average durum yields are expected to be only 22.3 bu./acre, compared to the five year average of 32.4 bu./acre.
Field pea production is expected to drop by 17 percent to 2.4 million acres, even though this year’s acreage of 1.46 million acres is the largest ever, and well above last year’s previous record acreage of 1.24 million acres.
That’s because yields are expected to collapse to 25.3 bu./acre from the 34.3 bu./acre five-year average.
Though it’s a big drop from last year, it will still be the second largest pea crop ever.
Barley production is estimated to fall to 11.6 million tonnes from the five-year average of 13.7 million tonnes. That drop is almost entirely due to lower yields because of the western drought.
Canola production is expected to fall by 28 percent, which is a bigger drop than Stats Can’s estimated 23 percent reduction based on fewer seeded acres.
However, by estimating that producers will harvest 5.1 million tonnes of canola this summer, Stats Can is forecasting a substantially larger crop than many analysts expect to be produced.
Since the report was completed, drought conditions have continued across much of the Prairies, and many Manitoba fields have been hard hit by sclerotinia.
Analysts therefore expect the final numbers to be substantially less than the Aug. 28 Stats Can numbers.
