August 22, 2013
Canada may harvest record high wheat and rapeseed
Canadian farmers may collect the most wheat in 22 years and produce record high rapeseed crop, according to a government survey.
All-wheat production will probably expand to 30.6 million tonnes, up 12.9% from 27.1 million tonnes in 2012, Statistics Canada said today from Ottawa. Wheatproduction is forecast to be the highest since 1991 when farmers produced 31.9 million tonnes. The average production estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News was just below 30 million tonnes.
The rapeseed harvest in Canada, the world''s largest grower, may climb 11.5% to 14.7 million tonnes, up from 13.2 million tonnes in 2012 and exceeding the record output of 14.6 million tonnes in 2011, according to the report. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey forecast 15.4 million tonnes.
Statistics Canada said it interviewed about 15,000 farmers between July 24 and August 5. The estimate excludes production in British Columbia and Canada''s Atlantic provinces, which accounts for 2% to 4% of output, Statistics Canada said. Production data for previous years was revised to exclude output from those areas.
Growing conditions have "improved and the threat of frost is really out of the forecast," Tony Tryhuk, branch manager for RBC Dominion Securities commodity futures trading division, said in a telephone interview from Winnipeg before the report.
While planting in many parts of Western Canada was delayed this spring by excess moisture and cool temperatures, farmers managed to sow most of their crop by mid-June, according to reports from Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Warm, wet weather across the Canadian Prairies in the last half of June and early July boosted prospects for higher rapeseed yields, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada said in a July 17 report and Alberta''s agriculture ministry estimated yields could rise as much as 20% above average.
Today''s government estimate does not fully show the yield potential, Ken Ball, senior commodities futures adviser for PI Financial in Winnipeg, said in an e-mailed statement before the report. Many crops were slow to develop and rapeseed fields that were still in full flower in late July may now produce 60-70 bushels an acre, he said.
Cooler temperatures in early August put crop development 10 days to two weeks behind normal in many areas, Saskatchewan''s agriculture ministry said on August 15. Warm weather helped to advance crops last week and spring wheat yields in Saskatchewan, the largest producer, may range between 33 and 38 bushels an acre in the south and as much as 41 bushels in the north, according to provincial estimates.
Wheat futures on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange fell 15% this year, and rapeseed prices declined 14% on ICE Futures Canada in Winnipeg.