Canola Acres a Surprise in Stats Can Report

One of the biggest surprises in the Statistics Canada acreage report was the canola number. Intelli Farm’s Brian Voth says with canola prices where they’ve been throughout the winter, the number doesn’t make sense. “Pretty much everyone in the trade is going to toss that number out. It may get adjusted when the June report comes out. If the number was accurate, Canada would basically be out of canola by the end of the crop year.” Given high yields last year, Voth says an increase in spring wheat and durum acres was expected. “However, we weren’t expecting acres to be up three million from last year. I’d argue the wheat number is too high because the barley number is too low. There were really good feed barley prices in the prairies this winter, which may attract more acres.”