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2025 Canadian Farming Outlook Reveals Mixed Results

2025 Canadian Farming Outlook Reveals Mixed Results
Sep 02, 2025
By Farms.com

Farmers face variable yields across provinces in 2025

Canadian crop production in 2025 is expected to show both gains and declines, with farmers projected to harvest more canola, corn for grain, oats, and lentils.  

At the same time, spring wheat, durum wheat, soybeans, and barley are anticipated to see reduced production compared with 2024, according to model estimates based on satellite imagery and agroclimatic data. 

Across the Prairie provinces, crop conditions have been highly variable. Lower precipitation and extended heat in some regions led to below-average crop conditions by late July. Other areas that benefited from timely rainfall recorded stronger growth. In Alberta, nearly two-thirds of major crops were rated good to excellent at the end of July, above the five-year average. Still, moisture shortages in parts of the province may limit yield potential. 

In Saskatchewan, rainfall supported normal crop development in some areas, while dry conditions forced earlier-than-normal maturation elsewhere.  

Manitoba faced greater challenges, with many regions receiving less than half of normal rainfall, combined with high early-season heat that may reduce crop performance. 

Eastern Canada also experienced diverse conditions. Ontario and Atlantic Canada saw below-average rainfall, while Quebec received more than normal. Overall, higher-than-usual temperatures affected most of the eastern provinces throughout the growing season. 

Satellite measures of plant health, using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), confirmed this variability. Prairie crop health ranged from much lower than normal to much higher than normal, aligning closely with rainfall patterns. 

Statistics Canada has applied these satellite-based models since 2016 to estimate yields. Final harvested area figures will be confirmed in December 2025 through the Field Crop Survey.  

You may also be interested in reading some of the articles below to learn more details for each crop forecast.    

 


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Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators