If you’ve got winter wheat, the Canadian Wheat Board wants it, and now.
Prairie farmers are in the final stages of harvesting a high volume, high quality winter wheat crop.
The board says international demand is strong and prices are good, and it is urging producers to sign delivery contracts as soon as possible.
“There are strong sales opportunities out there,” said spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry.
“If we know we can originate it, we can make even more sales than we’re making now.”
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She declined to identify specific customers but did say the marketing agency will be able to sell all the winter wheat that producers want to deliver.
“It’s definitely a good news story,” she said.
“Everything is lining up. There are really good sales opportunities, there’s lots of it available, it’s good quality and it’s moving quite efficiently.”
This year’s winter wheat crop will be the biggest ever, at around 1.5 million tonnes.
The board expects to ship about 600,000 tonnes of generic winter wheat to export markets, along with 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes under its Special Select Identity Preserved (SSIP) contract program for high quality milling varieties.
Sharray Dutka, the board’s manager of operational inventory, said the board plans to move the SSIP in concert with the generic winter wheat this fall.
In previous years, some wheat eligible for SSIP had been shipped as generic.
That’s because the generic moves out right after harvest and farmers wanting immediate cash flow don’t like waiting for the SSIP program to be organized.
“This year, we’re going to align the movement of special select with generic,” she said.
Grain companies will put together 25 car blocks of SSIP wheat at specific elevators to provide more efficient movement to port. The elevators will be selected by the grain companies. However, Dutka said farmers will receive the $10 a tonne SSIP premium no matter where they deliver.
The CWB’s current pool return outlook for
1 CWRW is $208 a tonne. The initial payment is $125.50, although last week the board asked the federal government for an increase.
For 1 CWRW Select 11.5 percent protein, the PRO is $221 a tonne. The initial payment is $140, with a request for an increase.
Winter wheat yields will vary significantly across the Prairies this year, depending on local growing conditions.
Last week Rod Fedoruk, a grower from Kamsack, Sask., was in the middle of harvesting what looked to be an 80 bushel crop with relatively high protein.
“We had a hailstorm and a fair bit of rain, but it’s still pretty good,” he said.
Bruce Burnett, of the CWB’s weather and crop surveillance department, said prairie-wide yields probably range from 20 to 40 bu. in some areas of southern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta that suffered drought early in the spring, all the way up to 70 to 90 bu. in areas where spring conditions were more favourable, like Manitoba.
Winter wheat plantings were almost 1.1 million acres last fall, one of the highest acreage numbers of the past 20 years.
Burnett said that reflects a number of factors.
New and improved varieties, with better milling qualities, have resulted in greater market demand; wet spring seeding conditions in recent years have prompted farmers in some areas to turn to fall-seeded crops; an early harvest in the fall of 2006 also left more time for farmers to plant winter cereals; and farmers are becoming more aware of the management.
The bottom line is that winter wheat is no longer a fringe crop.
“It’s definitely becoming a more significant crop,” he said.
However, Burnett added that seeded area will still go up and down from year to year depending on weather conditions in the fall.
“If we get a late harvest some year, we’ll see that acreage go down,” he said.
“It won’t be a consistent, steady increase.”
