Canadian farmers expected to grow more barley this year. (ID 73748629 © Deyana Robova Dreamstime.com

By Alice McFarlane

STATISTICS CANADA PLANTING INTENTIONS

Canadian farmers expected to grow more barley and less canola this year

Apr 29, 2021 | 2:17 PM

MELFORT, Sask. — Statistics Canada is forecasting a large increase in barley areas, a modest rise in canola acreage but less wheat, peas, and oats this year.

The numbers come from a March survey of 11,500 Canadian farmers.

Canadian farmers intend to expand canola acres as they look to cash in on record-high prices. The Statistics Canada 2021 Seeded Acre Estimates indicated seeded canola area could reach 21.5 million acres up 3.6 per cent from last year and the biggest area in three years.

Senior commodity futures advisor Ken Ball with P.I. Financial in Winnipeg, Man. said the markets would like to see canola acres over 23 million metric tonnes. He said even if the total acres manage to go up a bit it will still be shy of that number.

Ball said there have been extreme market gains over the last month. The report will be supportive of new crop canola and today’s price volatility had little to do with the release of today’s report, he said.

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Ball does not believe the report would cause producers to change their seeding intentions because once a plan is in place, farmers tend to stick to it even when they’ve been tempted to make adjustments based on the markets.

“Most growers, I’m sure, would have largely made up their mind when this data was collected,” Ball said. “There may have been a little bit of a shift, given how extreme the canola prices have gone just in the last few weeks, it might pull in a few more acres.”

Ball said producers are reluctant to push rotations any harder.

“There’s many areas where they’ve already pushed too far and they’re in some trouble,” Ball said. “It just puts more pressure on good weather and high yields and getting uniform growing conditions across the prairies and we know how hard that is.”

The largest change from last year is barley acreage. Ball said it is up 13.9 per cent to 8.6 million acres on a national basis. The Saskatchewan increase for barley is a whopping 24.5 per cent to 3.9 million acres. That would be the largest barley area in Saskatchewan since 2007.

“The wheat acres were a bit below, but we knew barley would be up, but it was up way more than even we thought. Talking to my clients in Alberta, it’s barley, barley, barley. Everybody wants to grow barley,” he said.

Another possible factor on seeding intentions is the dry conditions over a large portion of Western Canada. Ball said it may be early in the season, but it is weighing on producers’ minds.

“Certainly 60 to 65 per cent of the prairies are extremely dry. Northern Saskatchewan, parts of northern Alberta and patches in Manitoba are okay,” Ball said. “We’re seeing a smattering of moisture starting to appear, but it’s pretty light. There are some areas that have been lucky and got a little more but it’s only just barely helping at this stage. We’ve got to see something better develop.”

Spring wheat area will decline by nine per cent to 16.34 million acres nationally and pea acreage will fall almost 10 per cent to 3.84 million acres.

The oat estimate is six per cent lower nationally while flax area is up 5.6 per cent.