Prairie producers weren’t optimistic when Statistics Canada asked them at the end of July about the prospects for their 2003 crop.
And it appears their pessimism was well founded.
Farmers in Western Canada surveyed by the federal agency between July 25 and Aug. 3 said they expected to grow 18.5 million tonnes of wheat and durum.
That’s nearly two million tonnes below the Canadian Wheat Board’s Aug. 6 estimate of 20.3 million tonnes, and well below the 19.8 million tonne outlook published by Agriculture Canada’s market analysis division Aug. 8.
That same pattern holds true for barley, with farmers telling Statistics Canada they expect to produce 11 million tonnes, versus the CWB’s forecast of 11.4 million and Ag Canada’s 12.2 million.
Read Also
Land crash warning rejected
A technical analyst believes that Saskatchewan land values could be due for a correction, but land owners and FCC say supply/demand fundamentals drive land prices – not mathematical models
While all those estimates were put together at about the same time, it seems that farmers were anticipating the hot dry weather that shrivelled crops.
Bruce Burnett, director of weather and crop surveillance for the board, said the crop outlook has clearly declined since the board released its forecast.
“We said that to maintain those yields we needed to have some precipitation and milder weather,” he said. “Instead we got no precipitation and extremely hot weather, so the yields will clearly be lower.”
The board also used a slightly higher wheat acreage in its forecast than did Statistics Canada.
While the numbers issued by the board and Ag Canada are based on field tours, analysis by crop experts and computer models, the Statistics Canada survey is the only one that includes input from farmers.
As a result, its forecast is sometimes criticized as subjective and unscientific, but the record shows that is accurate.
Over the past 10 years, the July estimate has averaged 45.32 million tonnes while the final production figure released by the statistics agency in November has averaged 45.39 million, a difference of less than two-tenths of one percent.
The July 31 estimate has been higher than the final production number five times and lower five times, with the disparity ranging from 123,000 tonnes in 1996 to 3.5 million tonnes in 1993.
“It’s not a bad predictor,” said Glenn Lennox, wheat market analyst with Agriculture Canada.
“Farmers have a pretty good idea by the end of July whether the crop’s going to be good or not. If you get enough farmers and ask them the same question, the low-ballers are probably offset by the high-ballers, and it seems to work.”
All told, the roughly 14,000 farmers surveyed in Western Canada said they expect to produce 42.8 million tonnes of wheat, durum, barley, oats, rye, flaxseed, canola and dry peas.
While that’s 51 percent more than last year’s drought-ravaged crop, it is smaller than farmers and grain marketers had been hoping for this spring when rain got things off to a great start.
The 10-year average crop in Western Canada (not including peas) is slightly more than 45 million tonnes. The Statistics Canada estimate for 2003, not including peas, is 40.5 million.
For canola, farmers estimated a crop of 6.2 million tonnes. That’s right in the middle of trade estimates, which have been running from as low as 5.7 million to as high as 6.8 million.
Yields are estimated at 23.6 bushels per acre, including 26.7 in Alberta, 20.7 in Saskatchewan and 26.1 in Manitoba.
That Manitoba number was described as “shocking” in a market commentary published by Vancouver-based Statcom Ltd., which expects yields in the province to be 29-30 bu.
Canola industry officials in the province say yields are highly variable, with good crops in the east and mediocre in the west, but the final number should be around the five-year average of 28.6 bu.
“I’m still hoping we should be able to attain our average for the province,” said Derwyn Hammond, a Brandon-based agronomist with the Canola Council of Canada. He said early harvest results have been better than expected.
Pulse crops such as lentils and chickpeas and special crops such as mustard and canaryseed were not included in the survey.
