Saskatchewan farmers, who account for more than half the wheat and canola acres planted in Canada, planted slightly fewer acres of both crops this spring, according to the latest principal field crops report from Statistics Canada.
The report released Tuesday is based on a survey of 24,500 Canadian farmers conducted between May 28 and June 11.
Canadian farmers reported increasing their 2015 plantings of wheat by 1.3 per cent from 2014 to 24.1 million acres, the federal agency said. The increase was driven by a 21.1 per cent rise in planting of durum wheat to 5.8 million acres, while spring wheat fell 1.5 per cent to 17.1 million acres.
Saskatchewan farmers reported that wheat seeding fell by less than 1.0 per cent in 2015 to 13.0 million acres. Spring wheat accounted for this decline, down 7.4 per cent to 7.9 million acres. By contrast, durum wheat planting increased 17.9 per cent to 5.0 million acres in 2015.
Alberta farmers reported that area seeded to all varieties of wheat edged up 0.7 per cent in 2015 to 6.8 million acres, with durum area rising 45.5 per cent to 800,000 acres, while area seeded to spring wheat declined by 2.7 per cent. Manitoba farmers reported seeding 3.0 million acres of spring wheat, up 17 per cent from 2014.
Canadian farmers reported seeding 19.8 million acres of canola in 2015, down 2.4 per cent from 2014.
In Saskatchewan, canola acreage fell two per cent to 10.5 million acres. Farmers in Alberta seeded 6.1 million acres of canola, down 6.2 per cent compared with 2014. However, Manitoba farmers reported a 4.7 per cent increase in canola acreage to 3.1 million acres
Nationally, area seeded to soybeans was 5.4 million acres in 2015, 2.5 per cent below the record high of 2014. This decline was driven by decreases in Quebec and Ontario, which typically account for around 70 per cent of total acreage sown in Canada.
Source : Leaderpost