No one is fazed by farmers’ intentions to expand total acreage to the maximum this spring because no one believes they have any real chance of doing so.
“This is an assumption that three and a half million acres more than tend to get seeded over the past five years will get seeded this year,” said Canadian Wheat Board analyst Stuart McMillan, referring to the Statistics Canada seeding intentions survey.
“To me that’s a fairly optimistic statement.”
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Agri-Trend marketing manager Derek Squair said he thinks millions of acres will drop away by the time the 2011 crop is seeded.
“We’re probably going to lose three to five million acres, depending on what we see over the next five to six weeks.”
Analysts expect all crops will lose acres as seeding problems arise, but it’s canola, durum and special crops that might see the heaviest losses.
“The 19.2 (million acres of canola to be seeded) they’ve got there is way too high,” said Squair.
McMillan said the northeastern Saskatchewan-northwestern Manitoba region and southwestern Saskatchewan might be particularly hard hit because they are struggling with high soil moisture levels.
It might be impossible for farmers in northeastern Saskatchewan and northwestern Manitoba to seed canola if they have continuing problems, while farmers in southwestern Saskatchewan may choose to seed spring wheat rather than durum.
“They produce a lot of canola (in northeastern Saskatchewan),” said McMillan.
“They have the potential to lose quite a few acres of canola and switch into some of the cooler season spring grains. They might swing into feed barley and feed oats.”
The abnormally cold and wet spring could reduce durum planting.
“This is why I don’t think we’ll see 5.05 million acres of durum seeded this year,” McMillan said.
The rising value of spring wheat compared to durum could also encourage farmers to red spring wheat.
“It might make it more attractive to put in spring wheat versus a durum,” said McMillan.
Squair said farmers are already avoiding special crops in their seeding plans, and bad weather could further exaggerate that bias.
“We’ll see them seed wheat and canola and pitch everything else.”
Duvenaud said the bias against small acreage crops might set up next winter’s crop market rally.
“It’s going to be awkward if you’re a user,” he said.
“Every one of these special crops is going to be in trouble for supplies.”
And Strychar said the perilously low oat carryout could make that crop a top performer in the coming year.
