By Geoff Smith (@smithco on Twitter)

Pulses growing while wheat, canola still dominate

May 10, 2017 | 10:55 AM

LETHBRIDGE – Wheat and canola still top the charts– but pulse crops are zooming up the rankings in southern Alberta.

Data from the 2016 Census of Agriculture released by Statistics Canada shows more than two million acres devoted to wheat crops in the areas that include Lethbridge, Taber, Vulcan, Pincher Creek, and Cardston. Total acreage is up 1.9 per cent from 2011.

Acres devoted to canola, excluding the Cardston/Pincher Creek region (for which 2016 data was not available), totalled nearly 1.1 million acres, a decrease of more than two per cent.

From the pulse crop categories, lentils were up 226 per cent to 140,000 acres. Dry field peas totalled 594,000 acres, an increase of 164 per cent.

Even corn saw a significant increase, growing 88 per cent to 109,000 acres.

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Among other crops, potatoes were down slightly to 39,000 acres, while the mustard seed crop doubled in size to nearly 55,000 acres. Sugar beets were down 18 per cent to just under 22,000 acres.

And from the livestock sector, total cattle and calf numbers were up more than nine per cent from 2011, to more than 1.9 million head. Provincewide, it was the first increase since the 2001 census, as Alberta continued to report the largest cattle herd in Canada.

With farms getting larger, Stats Can points out the total number of farms in Canada is declining, but the average size is getting larger. Alberta is behind only Ontario in the total number of farms, and is second in farm area and field crop area.