(File photo/farmnewsNOW Staff)

By Alice McFarlane

Statistics Canada Seeding Report

No surprises in seeded acreage report

Jun 30, 2020 | 12:00 PM

Saskatchewan farmers planted more durum and lentils, but fewer acres of spring wheat, canola and soybeans compared to last year.

Statistics Canada (StatCan) released its June crop acreage report.

Spring wheat dropped eight per cent, canola was down roughly one per cent, while durum jumped 13 per cent.

FarmLink Marketing Solutions senior analyst Neil Townsend said the report contained few surprises.

“The crops that were gaining had good market conditions toward planting time and even beyond planting time,” Townsend said. “Another one that would have picked up quite a bit of acres in Saskatchewan was lentils and farmers saw strong prices for red lentils not just for 2019 production and supply but also projected for 2020.”

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Townsend said the one commodity that caught FarmLink by surprise was peas with seeded acreage close to the 4.3 million acres planted last year.

“We thought peas would lose a little bit of ground to lentils but obviously pea prices were strong enough but also the attraction of that early access to marketing for peas,” he said.

Barley acreage rose 1.4 per cent to the highest seeded area since 2009 while oats gained 6.5 per cent. Townsend said the report was neutral for grain prices.

“When expectations are more or less met, when you see what the trade expected, and Statistics Canada are parallel, you don’t get much opportunity for marketing in the short run.”

In the longer-term Townsend anticipates lower prices for red lentils if harvest remains favourable.

The report also indicated cool temperatures throughout most of the country and ongoing harvest of 2019 crops in parts of Western Canada, dry conditions early in seeding aided planting progress. The exception was northwest Saskatchewan and most of Alberta which received higher-than-average levels of precipitation.

StatCan said while seeding progress may not have been directly impacted by COVID-19, farmers continue to face their own set of unique challenges in the regular production and distribution of their crops due to the pandemic.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF