Canadian farmers planted 25.4 million acres to wheat tis year, up from 25.0 million acres forecast in April and 2 million acres (8.7%) more than last year, according to Statistics Canada (Stats Can). Spring wheat area at 18.2 million acres rose 10.5% from last year. The increase in total wheat area was likely attributable to favorable prices and strong global demand.
Canadian canola acreage totaled 21.2 million acres, according to Stats Can, up 500,000 acres from spring intentions but down 1.1 million acres (4.7%) from last year. MarketsFarm analyst Mike Jubinville said high spring prices may have increased farmers shifting to canola, though the price situation has sure changed from a month ago.
Jubinville noted, “Personally, I was looking for some loss to canola and wheat acres, shifting to shorter season barley and oats... but we did not see that in this report. Aside from environmental conditions, high input prices, high crop prices resulting from low national and global supply, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine likely impacted farmers’ final seeding decisions.”
