If you need a canola industry leader right now, you’ll have trouble finding one on the Prairies. Most have moved hundreds of metres higher into the first fold of the Rocky Mountains, up to Banff, where the Canola Council of Canada is holding its annual convention.
Some industry-related events began happening on the weekend and the official opening reception was last night. I attended that event and in between gawking at the stunning setting – the historic Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel at the base of some razor-sharp mountains – and nabbing and swallowing some really great Alberta beef – I spoke to lots of canola industry leaders and got a sense of what’s going on in the industry and what farmers, processors, retailers and others are thinking about.
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I got the sense that the canola industry is knuckling down now to try to deliver on the bold target set last year at this convention of producing 26 million tonnes of canola by 2025. That’s about 10 million tonnes more than can confidently be predicted for today’s crop production reality and will take a cross-industry effort to achieve. For farmers, it means an Prairiewide average of 52 bushels per acre.
The easy days of pushing acreage and tightening rotations are done. Many farmers have already grown canola too many times in recent years and have either incurred disease problems or are backing away slightly so they don’t develop those problems. Yield gains in recent years have been impressive, with great new genetics and systems being incorporated in Prairie cropping, but threatening to match that is the spread of clubroot, the incidence of blackleg and the appearance of verticillium wilt. Managing disease while pushing production is likely to be a growing concern for farmers and the industry.
To hear and see what people are saying during the convention, follow me on Twitter at @EdWhiteMarkets or follow the #CCCBanff15 hashtag. That will give you almost-live updates on what’s being said here.
From last night’s reception here’s three brief interviews with two farmer-leaders and the president of the Canola Council of Canada.
