Are Edible Beans Complacent?

VANCOUVER - Dec 18/07 - SNS -- The 2007 calendar year is wrapping up on as challenging a footing for specialty crops for the coming year as was the case one year ago even thought thinking in those markets has undergone a major shift.

The problem facing the markets in Canada and the United States was brought into focus earlier this week by Darrel Good, Extension Economist, University of Illinois, when he said. "Early projections for 2008 suggest that U.S. harvested acreage of corn, soybeans, and wheat all need to be larger than in 2007, by a total of about 7.4 million acres.

"With rising prices of other commodities and limited amounts of uncultivated acreage available, it is difficult to see how such an increase can occur. The crop markets have an interesting challenge ahead. With an increase in winter wheat acreage likely already in place, prices of corn and soybeans in particular may have to remain high relative to alternative crops in order to ensure sufficient acreage in 2008. In addition, average yields will have to remain high to generate sufficient production."

Last year's 17 million acres increase in feed grain seedings in the United States came at the expense of a 11.9 million acre decline in U.S. soybean area, 4.4 million fewer acres of cotton, and 900,000 fewer acres devoted to other oilseeds, edible beans, peas, lentils, and sugar beets. The challenge facing grain and oilseed markets in 2008-09 is that corn acreage probably needs to increase slightly, while major increases in wheat and soybean plantings are needed to cover projected market requirements.

While western Canada remains uniquely positioned to increase land in all crops in 2008; this is not true of eastern Canada, the United States, and other major northern hemisphere producing areas, including central and eastern Europe, Turkey and the Middle East. Western Canada is one of the few major agricultural producing areas in the world where farmers intentionally remove vast tracts of land from production each year.

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