Few Surprises in Canadian Seeded Area

VANCOUVER - Jun 22/06 - SNS -- Statistics Canada's seeded area estimates for Canadian specialty crops contained few surprises even though field peas came in at a record and growers maintained their determination to significantly reduce lentil seedings.

Total specialty crop seedings increased from the March seeding intentions, advancing from almost 6.49 million acres to nearly 6.65 million acres. Despite the improvement, specialty crops did not garner the same interest as other crops.

Instead of increasing summerfallow 10.16 to 11.71 million acres, they reduced it to 9.3 million acres. Of the 2.4 million acres switched out of summerfallow, only 160,000 acres went into specialty crops; while canola area jumped 1.795 million acres from the March seeding intentions to 13.392 million acres, down just 1.3% from last year.

Statistics Canada noted the "possibility of improved canola prices appears to be the catalyst for continued above-average areas planted to canola. This was the case in spite of large stocks of canola remaining to be marketed and comparatively high input costs for this crop."

Clearly, western Canadian farmers are less optimistic about specialty crops than canola.

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