Lack of Change More Surprising

VANCOUVER - Oct 4/11 - SNS -- The biggest surprise in the latest crop production estimates from Statistics Canada was that there were no changes to this year's seeded area for pulses and specialty crops.

Judging from conditions in June and seeding progress reports from provincial agriculture departments, many market participants are certain farmers were unable to plant as lentils and other crops as indicated by Statistics Canada in its June and August crop reports.

Doubt over how much of each crop was planted will persist until the final crop report of the year, due for release on December 6.

In recent years, the final acreage estimate and production estimates for lentils tended to be higher than earlier reports, though this was not the case in 2005 and 2006. By contrast, there has tended to be little or no change in the final seeded are field peas, though the actual crop has tended to be slightly smaller than thought in September.

Differences between the September and final numbers have tended to be larger for the other pulses and specialty crops grown in Canada. A simple explanation is that the smaller the acreage, the easier it is for individual surveys to miss pockets of production.

It needs to be said that Statistics Canada tries hard to capture any production pockets by surveying a high percentage of active farmers. This year's computer assisted telephone survey of 14,100 Canadian farmers was conducted from September 1 to September 9, 2010. By the time the survey was done, the lentil harvest was roughly 76% complete, peas 81% complete, mustard seed 22%, and canaryseed 1%, while no chickpeas or sunflower had been harvested.