Today’s prairie farmers have seen many changes in their crops in the last 15 years thanks to breeding breakthroughs and developing markets. What can their children expect to see by 2025?
Western Producer reporter Sean Pratt talked to experts who expect some new crops and some that will look new because of genetic changes. But most will be the familiar standbys we see today. The big change will be in the mix of crops farmers will seed, the uses for them and where they are grown. New oilseed types will be used for fuel and industrial products, soybeans will push west and north, pulses will expand while cereal area might shrink.
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The next 15 years of western Canadian crop production are expected to be more of the same, but with a twist.
Agricultural visionaries see the trend continuing toward less cereal grain and more oilseeds and legumes.
Most believe wheat and barley will lose ground to canola, pulses, soybeans, corn, forage crops and other up-and-coming industrial oilseeds.
The crop mix will be largely unchanged, aside from a few newcomers, but upon closer inspection many of the old crops will be unrecognizable.
Ag-West Bio Inc. president Wilf Keller says genomics will be the biggest trend shaping the face of farming in 2025. The biotechnology revolution will pale by comparison.
By examining all a plant’s genes and how they interact rather than fiddling with individual genes, scientists will be able to create crops better equipped to handle stresses like drought and nutrient and water deficiencies.
Genomics will transform the architecture of today’s plants so that they will produce larger seeds and bigger leaves that capture more sunlight.
“I think we’re going to see a revolution in plant productivity,” Keller said.
John Oliver, president of the consulting firm Maple Leaf Bio-Concepts, said the revolution isn’t happening fast enough. Farmers need crops that can withstand extreme heat and rainfall because that is the predicted weather of the future.
“This industry is prone to incrementalism and we need to transform the industry,” he said.
Keller said genomics will pave the way for further segmentation of crop classes to meet certain nutrient profiles, along the lines of today’s high oleic canola.
Author and futurist Jack Uldrich said that should be farming’s direction because it’s what consumers want.
“There is this huge push towards customization,” he said.
“You can go to Starbucks and you can get your coffee in literally 400 different permutations.”
Rex Newkirk, Canadian International Grains Institute director of research and business development, said the focus on producing quality over quantity will continue, carrying on the tradition set with Canada’s milling quality bread wheat, healthy canola oil and malting quality barley.
“I don’t think we can be the Wal-Mart of the world, nor do we want to be the Wal-Mart,” he said.
“We don’t need to be everything to everybody, but we’ve got to be something to somebody and I think we can do that well. The quality advantage seems to be the one that we’ve been pretty good at delivering.”
What do these trends mean to the types of crops farmers will grow?
Most visionaries agree soybeans will continue their westward march onto the Prairies.
“The creeping giant is soybeans,” Oliver said.
He forecasts eight to nine million acres of the crop in Western Canada by 2025, which will come at the expense of cereal crops and maybe canola.
Oliver said extreme weather will be the norm in the future, and soybeans have shown great resilience under difficult growing conditions.
Barry Hall, president of the Flax Council of Canada, said 2010 made a soybean believer out of many western Canadian farmers.
“I’m just absolutely amazed by the stories I hear from producers,” he said.
“The abuse that that crop took, in terms of being underwater at times and rebounding and yielding 30, 40, as high as 50 bushels to the acre, it’s quite incredible.”
Other analysts aren’t as bullish on soybeans, but most see more plantings. Keller and Newkirk project two million acres on the Prairies by 2025, up from about 500,000 in 2010.
Newkirk said they will be specialty trait soybeans grown in identity preservation systems, such as non-genetically modified soybeans.
King canola is expected to continue its steady ascent, driven by growing global demand for healthy oil and biodiesel.
Newkirk predicts two million acres of oilseeds grown for biodiesel, most of which will be canola.
The analysts were unanimous in their belief that pulses will expand their reach because of mounting demand for vegetable protein and their ability to fix their own nitrogen.
Garth Patterson, executive director of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, expects nine million acres of Saskatchewan pulses by 2025, double today’s levels. Lentils will lead the charge, followed by peas, but a new pulse could overtake chickpeas and beans for third place.
Fababeans may comprise as much as 500,000 acres by 2025. They are the best nitrogen-fixing pulse and contain the highest level of protein.
Keller expects a revitalization of forage crops as society embraces the move toward free-range animals.
“I see a revolution there,” he said. “Any beef producer I’ve talked to, they don’t think feedlot feeding is sustainable.”
Colleen Christensen, Feeds Innovation Institute executive director, said an average of 50 percent of cereal grains don’t make human food grade. She expects that average to climb because of more variable weather.
Most analysts believe corn will displace some wheat and barley, but
i t won’t expand at the pace of soybeans.
Keller thinks there could be more than one million acres of corn grown on the Prairies by 2025.
“I think corn is coming,” he said. “Somebody was telling me they saw a reasonable field of corn north of Prince Albert, (Sask.,) this year.”
Analysts also agree that two million acres of industrial oilseeds such as camelina and Brassica carinata could be grown on marginal land.
Oats will likely stabilize after years of decline due to its health benefits.
Most anticipate that the growth of soybeans, canola, pulses, forage crops, corn and industrial oilseeds will come at the expense of cereal grains.
“I see a decrease in barley and wheat, no question in my mind,” Keller said.
Newkirk said the erosion will be in bread wheat and feed barley acres. Malting barley will hold its own or maybe even increase, and food barley could rival malt barley.
Jerome Konecsni, National Research Council’s Plant Biotechnology Institute director general, is the exception to the consensus.
“We may see a resurgence in cereals,” he said.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has said cereal grain production must rise to three billion tonnes by 2050 from about 2.1 billion in 2009.
“If the market is growing for a crop, you want to be a part of that,” said Konecsni.
He said seed technology companies are investing in wheat research after pulling out for several years. G M wheat could appear by 2025.
Konecsni was optimistic about the future for winter wheat but not durum because of an anticipated decline in demand for high starch pastas due to health concerns.
The outlook for special crops is dismal because of a lack of research spending.
“My crystal ball says (special crops) will continue to decline to where they’re just cottage industries,” Newkirk said.
But the biggest acreage loser will likely be summerfallow as farmers refine their continuous cropping skills.
“It will be extinct,” Keller said.
