AAFC expects small drop in durum acres

(Resource News International) — Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
expects the area seeded by Canadian farmers to durum this spring will be a bit less than what it had anticipated earlier in the year, according to an updated acreage outlook from AAFC’s market analysis division.

The area expected to be planted to some specialty and pulse crops has also been reduced.

The market analysis branch said the area seeded in spring 2008 will be influenced by expected net returns, current prices, expected delivery opportunities, crop rotation requirements and on-farm stocks.

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The area seeded to durum in the spring of 2008 is estimated at 5.930 million acres, down from the agency’s Jan. 30 forecast of 6.178 million. In 2007-08, 4.816 million acres were seeded to durum in Canada.

The all-wheat acreage estimate, however, was left unchanged from the January forecast at 24.216 million acres. In 2007-08, 21.866 million acres were seeded to all wheat in Canada.

The canola area estimate for Canada was maintained at its January forecast of 14.888 million acres. This would still be slightly higher than the 2007-08 level of 14.727 million acres.

Canadian producers, meanwhile, have increased plans to seed lentils. AAFC now estimates seeded lentil area at 1.532 million acres compared with 1.47 million in its Jan. 30 forecast. In 2007-08 1.334 million acres were seeded to lentils in Canada.

The area seeded to chickpeas was a bit lower, with AAFC expecting 257,000 acres to be put into the ground. This compares with the January forecast of 301,000 acres and was well below the 2007-08 level of 430,000 acres.

The canaryseed area estimate was lowered to 462,000 acres from 482,000 made in January, but was still higher than the year-ago level of 440,000 acres.

Statistics Canada will release its first seeding intentions update for the 2008-09 season on April 21.

Table: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s 2008-09 seedings estimate, in millions of acres.

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