Field Crop Values Maintain Upswing in Feb

OTTAWA - Apr 29/08 - SNS -- Field crop prices continued their advance during February, rising above both month and year earlier levels, according to Statistics Canada.

Prices that producers received for crops continued their double-digit increases, up 26.2% in February 2008 compared with February 2007. According to the Farm Product Price Index (FPPI), farmers received higher prices for all crops except vegetables and fruits.

However, prices for livestock and animal products were 4.7% below their February 2007 level, the sixth consecutive year-to-year decline as cattle and hog prices continued to fall. Hog, cattle and calf prices have posted nine months of year-to-year decreases. For the last six months, those declines have been double-digit for hog prices.

On a monthly basis, prices farmers received for their commodities were up 4.9% in February from a month earlier, as both the livestock and animal products index and the crops index recorded increases. The FPPI stood at 113.4 (1997=100) in February, up from the revised January 2008 index of 108.1.

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