StatsCan Surprises Markets

EUBAI - Apr 25/12 -- The Canadian delegation at this year's CICILS conference here entered damage control mode as news of the contents of Statistics Canada's seeding intentions report filtered through the industry.

Over 900 people are attending this year's conference, representing all the world's major supplying and consuming nations for pulses. As it turns out, all presentations for Canada were looking for a steeper reduction in lentil area, and bigger increases in peas than look to be the case.

Statistics Canada's March 23 to 30 survey of 13,400 farmers discovered they only intended to reduce lentil plantings 4.3% to 2.46 million acres; increase peas 42% to 3.31 million acres; and more than double chickpea area from 125,000 to 265,000 acres.

Not surprisingly, land in wheat and canola is up sharply over last year. A bigger surprise is the intention to reduce summerfallow to just 3.97 million acres, which reflects an important shift in attitude toward land use in western Canada.

In releasing the numbers, Statistics Canada cautioned, "Farmers may modify their plans prior to planting time as a result of economic and environmental conditions. Some farmers indicated that they were still undecided about their final strategies for 2012."

Discussing other crops, Statistics Canada said survey results indicate that Canadian farmers may seed a record 20.4 million acres of canola in 2012, up 8.0% or 1.5 million acres from the previous record of 18.9 million acres set in 2011. This would be the sixth consecutive annual record in canola area at the national level

This increase is driven by Saskatchewan, where farmers anticipate increasing their canola area 9.9% to a record high of 10.8 million acres. In Manitoba, farmers reported intentions to plant more canola, returning to pre-flood levels after being hit hard in 2011. They now intend to seed 3.3 million acres in canola, a 19.3% increase from the 2.7 million acres seeded in 2011.

At the national level, spring wheat area could rise 9.0% or 1.4 million acres to 17.2 million acres in 2012. Similarly, durum wheat acreage is expected to increase for a second consecutive year, to 5.1 million acres in 2012 from 4.0 million acres in 2011.

In Saskatchewan, intentions show spring wheat acreage rising to 8.6 million acres, up 14.7% or 1.1 million acres. Durum wheat acreage in Saskatchewan is expected to rise 28.1%, or 975,000 acres, to 4.5 million acres. In Manitoba, farmers anticipate that their seeded area of spring wheat will rise 24.9% in 2012 to 2.5 million acres. In Alberta, however, early intentions are for 5.9 million acres of spring wheat, down 2.3% from the area seeded in 2011.

In Ontario, farmers expect to seed a record 2.24 million acres of corn for grain, up by 335,000 acres or 17.6% from 2011. This would break the previous record of 2.17 million acres set in 1981. In Quebec, farmers anticipate the area seeded in corn for grain to rise 16.2% to just over one million acres in 2012.

Nationally, farmers are expecting to seed a soybean area of nearly 4.0 million acres in 2012, up from 3.8 million acres the previous year. This would be a record high.

Ontario farmers anticipate seeding 2.5 million acres of soybeans in 2012. If these intentions are realized, this level would surpass the record seeded area set in 2010 and unchanged in 2011.

Only active subscribers can read all of this article.

If you are a subscriber, please log into the website.

If you are not a subscriber, click here to subscribe to this edition of the STAT website and to learn more about becoming a subscriber.