Some Surprises in Canadian Seeded Area

VANCOUVER - Jun 24/08 - SNS -- Canada's seeded area estimates contained a few surprises, but the general direction of the numbers matched expectations coming into today's Statistics Canada report.

Total specialty crop seedings are up 5% higher than the March seeding intentions, rising from around 6.73 million to almost 7.1 million acres, up from just under 6.9 million acres last year. Statistics Canada surveyed 26,100 or roughly 11.5% of all farmers in Canada between May 23 and June 3. Seeding was well advanced during the survey period. Farmers in Saskatchewan had 86% of all crops planted by May 25 and 97% by June 1, suggesting they give a good picture of what was actually planted.

The biggest shifts from the March seeding intentions were in lentils and dry edible beans. Lentil area jumped 17% in response to the bullish world market conditions, which kicked in shortly after growers announced their intentions for 2008 and before they started to plant crops. Between the intentions report and seeding this year's crops, growers saw lentils make and remake record high bid levels in western Canada, with the strongest price performance coming from red lentils because of export bans in Syria and drought in Turkey.

Similarly strong markets for dry edible beans lifted area 23% higher than intended for a modest increase over last year. Chickpea area also rose above the March intentions, helped by optimism prices would remain strong in 2008-09 because of short crops in Mexico and Turkey; while booming oilseed markets had a spill over impact on sunflower, with seeded area rising 15% above the March intentions.

The fact there was almost no change in field pea area came as a bit of a surprise to markets, which were looking for a modest increase from the March intentions in response to good movement. Lackluster price performance during the seeding period also seemed to influence canaryseed and mustard growers, who reduced actual area 5% and 2% below their March intentions.

What is most interesting about Canada's seeded area estimates is that total land in crops reached a new record high, with the preliminary estimate of land in summerfallow totalling just 5.785 million acres, down from 7.71 million last year and recent five-year average of almost 8.6 million acres. Apart form the modest increase in specialty crop area, farmers eclipsed last year's record canola area by a million acres, planting 15.8 million this year; while boosting total wheat area from 21.6 to 25.1 million acres; and flaxseed from 1.31 to 1.51 million acres. On the other hand, barley area was slashed from 18.87 to 9.07 million acres; while oats dropped from 5.4 to 4.4 million; and corn for grain dropped from 3.44 to 2.98 million acres. Soybean plantings rose 77,000 acres to 2.99 million.

Subscribers can read the full text of the article by Clicking here