StatsCan Canadian Field Crop Report Released

Jun 29, 2016

Farms.com Editorial Team

Statistics Canada released the updated Canadian Field Crop report on June 29. Canadian farmers moved acreage to canola and pulse crops and seeded few acres of wheat, barley and oats this spring.

Many market analysts were anticipating the increase in pulse acreages but there were some surprises and now the market will be watching the weather conditions to determine the supply side with the size of the crop projections.

StatsCan estimates that canola seedings are at 20.02 million acres, up by nearly 700,000 from the previous estimate and in line with the year-ago level. Lentils also saw a sizeable increase, rising to a record 5.84 million acres, also up by 700,000 from the earlier forecast and well above the 3.95 million seeded in 2015-16.

The weather and yield prospects will be important factors in how the futures prices move going forward, says Moe Agostino, Commodity Analyst with Farms.com Risk Management, he mentioned “The yields tend to ultimately be a more important market price mover than the acres planted.”

Total Canadian wheat acreage was estimated at 23.177 million acres, which was down from an earlier estimate of 23.846 million and the 24.111 million acres seeded the previous year. Of that total, durum acres were steady at 6.1 million acres.

Barley and oats acres were pegged at 6.385 million and 2.861 million acres respectively, which were down from both earlier estimates and year-ago levels.

In addition to the lower cereal acreage, farmers planted more of their land with summerfallow estimats revised lower. StatsCan now foresees the total cropland left unseeded this year at a record-low 1.985 million acres, which compares with the earlier forecast of 2.16 million.

To find the full Statistics Canada Principal Field Crops Report, click the following link

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/160629/dq160629a-eng.htm

Additional Report Highlights.

Manitoba grain farmers planted a record amount of soybeans this spring planting 1.6 million acres of soybeans. That's an increase of 17.3 per cent from a year ago, and marked the eighth straight year that a record amount of the crop was planted in Manitoba.

The biggest Manitoba year-over-year decline was in the number of acres devoted to sunflowers. That dropped by 30 per cent to 70,000.

Farmers in Manitoba planted 325,000 acres of corn for grain in 2016, a 30.0% increase compared with last year.

Total area seeded to lentils reached a record high of 5.8 million acres in 2016, up 47.8% from the record set in 2015. Lentil area in Saskatchewan, which accounted for 90% of total acreage in Canada, rose 42.6% from last year to 5.3 million acres. In addition, Alberta farmers more than doubled their planted acres of lentils this year, up 126.0% to 565,000 acres.