Prairie farmers stick with people food

The Canadian Wheat Board wants the public to know that prairie farmers are growing wheat to feed people, not automobiles.

The marketing agency last week released the results of its 2008 variety survey.

In a News release

news accompanying the survey, the board noted that 88.4 percent of the wheat seeded in 2008 was destined for food production.

Chief executive officer Ian White said in the release the survey confirms that prairie grain farmers “are still working to feed the world.”

Board spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry said the board wanted to send a message to the non-farming public to keep things in perspective in the food versus fuel debate.

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While acknowledging that the ethanol industry is an important and growing market for farmers, she said the public needs to know that most prairie wheat and durum still ends up as food.

“We grow 25 million tonnes of wheat a year, so if there’s a certain percentage increase in ethanol acres out of that, you still have to go a long way before it’s more than a drop in the bucket.”

The percentage of the wheat crop planted to food has remained around 90 percent for decades. In 2008, 61.9 percent was Canada western red spring (CWRS) varieties and 26.5 percent Canada Western amber durum (CWAD) varieties.

A new class called Canada western general purpose (CWGP) was created this year specifically for high yielding, lower quality wheat destined for the ethanol or livestock feed markets. It now includes three varieties.

Meanwhile, 27 new varieties of milling quality CWRS have been introduced since 2001. More are on the way next year, including varieties with improvements in yield, protein levels and agronomic traits like maturity, lodging, sprouting and pest resistance.

Here are highlights of the variety survey, which included more than 8,800 farmers:

For the second year in a row Lillian, which carries sawfly resistance, was the most popular red spring variety, accounting for 16.4 percent of seeded area, up from 15 percent in 2007. There was no Lillian seeded in Manitoba.
Harvest was second at 13.2 percent and Superb third at 11.5 percent. Longtime No. 1 AC Barrie was fourth with 10.2 percent.
While 30 different spring wheat varieties were seeded in 2008, the top four together accounted for 51 percent of total area.

The most popular varieties by province were AC Barrie in Manitoba (24.3 percent), Lillian in Saskatchewan (23.8) and Harvest in Alberta (25.3).
The most seeded durum wheat was Strongfield at 51.8 percent, up from 41.4 in 2007. It was followed by AC Avonlea at 18.7 percent, Kyle at 16.1 and AC Navigator at 9.1.
Canada western red winter wheat was seeded on 6.6 percent of acres, up from five percent the year before. CDC Falcon, Buteo and Radiant were most popular.
AC Metcalfe was the top two-row malting barley for the seventh year in a row, at 56.5 percent, while Legacy accounted for 48.5 percent of six-row. The top feed barleys were Xena (two-row) and Vivar (six-row).