Maintaining N.A. Bean Area a Challenge

VANCOUVER - Oct 23/10 - SNS -- North American dry edible bean production is up significantly over last year because of a massive increase in seeded area in the United States because last year's market gave farmers better average returns per acre than other crops which were competing for the use of their land.

This saw total seeded area in the United States jump almost 24% to 1.9 million acres, while edible bean seedings in Canada rose just 10% to 326,000 acres. The difference in the responses can be directly accounted for by the degree to which soybeans compete for land use.

Soybean production in Manitoba has been trending upward in recent years because of the availability of varieties which do well in the province's soil zones and given the average number of days the crop has to mature.

Farmers in Manitoba planted 470,000 acres of soybeans this year, up from 412,000 last year. In its October crop report, Statistics Canada forecast production would rise from 321,100 metric tons (MT) to 400,100. In Ontario, soybean seedings inched up from 2.4 to 2.44 million acres, while production was forecast to jump from almost 2.62 to 2.83 million MT because of higher average yields.