Below Average Canadian Pulse Yields

OTTAWA - Aug 31/17 - SNS -- Statistics Canada's initial production estimate for 2017 contained no major surprises, with yields for all crops grown in the southern Prairies dropping below their recent five year averages.

Output of peas, lentils chickpeas and dry edible beans is expected to sink from 8.427 to 6.485 million metric tons (MT), with output of both peas and lentils dropping roughly one million tons from last year to 3.79 and 2.29 million MT respectively.

This year's chickpea harvest is expected to be virtually unchanged from last year; while Canada's dry edible bean harvest is projected to jump from 257,500 to 315,500 MT. In other special crops, mustard seed output is forecast to plunge from 235,600 to 129,500; while the canaryseed harvest is expected to sink from 151,500 to 122,000.

The estimates are derived from the July Farm Survey of crop production covering about 13,300 Canadian farms. The survey was conducted from July 19 to August 1, 2017. Statistics Canada will release "modelled yield and production estimates for field crops in Canada" on September 19. The September data will instead be derived from remote sensing, survey and agroclimatic data sources. This release is replacing the September Farm Survey.

It is important to note that during that period, less than 2% of the lentil crop and 1% of the peas were harvested by the end of July.

Even so, farmers believed this year's lentil yields were 6% below last year and down 20% from the recent five year average. When surveyed, growers thought field pea yields were down 19% from last year and 8% below average. However, reports by growers during harvest suggest average yields are higher than feared, suggesting the final production estimate will be higher than the current.