Unfavourable growing conditions combined with record levels of rainfall have made the 2010-11 crop year outlook grim in many areas across the Prairie provinces.
At a Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) press conference held recently in Winnipeg, CEO Ian White painted a picture of a year shaping up to be one many producers would rather forget.
“Unfortunately, with all the rain that has deluged the Prairies, a great many farmers are not going to have a very good year. Across the Prairies, farmers have been unable to seed about 10.5 million acres of all crops, due to the heavy rains that left the fields impassable, particularly through the planting window. Total seeding progress this year stalled at about 82 per cent of total.”
Although many areas in “next year country” have been hard-hit by weather and seeding woes, White singled out Saskatchewan as bearing the brunt of Mother Nature’s ill will.
“Farmers right across the Prairies have been seriously affected, but production in Saskatchewan has been the hardest hit. Certainly, there are areas in eastern and northern Saskatchewan that on satellite are not showing up as green, but also across into parts of Northern Manitoba, and an area east of Winnipeg. There are brown areas in many places, but these are the worst affected areas.”
Unseeded acres are currently estimated by the CWB to run into the multiple millions across the Prairies.
“We currently anticipate than in addition to the 10.5 million acres of all grains that were not planted, about 2.5 million that were seeded will not harvest a crop,” said White.
Despite massive rainfall rates in many areas throughout much of the spring and early summer, the Peace River region has been an anomaly, on the verge of collapse due to drought.
“If we look at the rainfall between April 1 and July 25, this really tells the story in terms of the wet weather that we’ve seen,” said White. “There are areas where we have seen record wet weather for this period, that is unprecedented, and extremely high wet areas. This covers most of the Prairies in the area to be seeded. The exception is the Peace River area, which has been deficient in rain. Farmers in that area did get a lot of their crops in early on in the season, but they have had very, very low rainfall to nonexistent in some parts of that area since that time.”
According to White, crops in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan have slowly been improving in recent weeks.
“If you look at July, you can see that things have improved somewhat. Down in southern Alberta, across the southern part of Saskatchewan into Manitoba, those areas have had much lower rainfall for the month, and with the heat units, the crop in those areas is improving quite considerably. There are only a few patches, notably around Saskatoon, where rainfall has been very heavy--200 per cent of average for the month. The area in the Peace River has not improved. This is meaning that in the Peace area, some of the farmers who did plant a crop will be almost at the point of writing those crops off.”
Overall improvement has been observed by the CWB in many areas following the disastrous rainfall levels experienced earlier in the summer.
“The story is mixed, but from our point of view, since the really bad news associated with the planting, crops that were planted look like they are improving, or have the potential to improve in any case,” said White.
Production estimates are down significantly from previous years due to the adverse conditions that were often experienced over the planting season, which left millions of acres unseeded.
“In terms of production predictions, all that rain and all those unseeded acres are having a severe effect on production. Production is expected to be down substantially from the exceptional numbers that we have seen in the last two years. We now predict all wheat production at about 18.5 million tonnes, that’s about the same as we saw in 2007, when seeding was actually voluntarily reduced, and it’s tied with the lowest production since 2002, when we had severe drought suffered in some areas. Production all wheat will be down about 3.4 million tonnes over the 10-year average, from 2002 to 2009, which was about 21.9 million tonnes. All barley is expected to come in at 7.5 million tonnes, the lowest level since 2002. Overall, our production estimates are down over what we had initially announced in June. We’re projecting yields to be slightly higher than our initial forecast at 38 bushels per acre. So at this stage, it’s still to early to predict what the crop might be.”
One bright spot for producers may be the continuing escalation in prices for wheat on the international market. Wheat futures markets have now posted their largest monthly percentage gains since 1959, with values shooting up over 50 per cent since the beginning of July to more than US $8 per bushel.
“We’re looking at a bulk export target of about 15.1 million tonnes, and that will be down 3.7 million tonnes from last year, and the smallest program since 2004-05. There is still a long way to go with prices for this year. We are seeing a lot of uncertainty, as wheat markets have been moving up in the last few weeks, largely on drought concerns in Russia and Kazakhstan, however overall, we do have to say that their remains a heavy supply of wheat,” said White.
Allan Oberg, a farmer from Forestburg, AB, and chair of the CWB board of directors, warned of the human face to the disastrous situation being experienced by many producers and their families across the Prairies.
“As a farmer myself, I want to emphasize that these production numbers really don’t tell the whole story of what may happen in 2010-11. Farmers are resilient--but when you can’t even get the seen in the ground, it’s devastating. And everyone need to be aware that this isn’t just about numbers, there’s a real human face to this situation. Good, honest, hardworking families across the Prairies are feeling the brunt of those wet conditions and those unseeded acres.”