Canadian farmers seeded more barley, peas, lentils, corn and oats than last year, but cut acreage in durum wheat and canola.
Canola, which has been the number one crop, saw acreage reduced by 8.2 per cent to 21 million acres as farmers responded to lower prices and loss of the lucrative Chinese market.
Saskatchewan farmers reduced canola acres by 6.5 per cent to 11.6 million, according to the Statistics Canada estimate of seeded acres.
Alberta farms cut canola by almost 13 per cent to 5.6 million acres while in Manitoba the crop lost 3.2 per cent to 3.3 million acres.
Wheat acres dropped a marginal .6 per cent across the country but durum took a hit with a one-fifth decline to 4.9 million acres.
The durum decline responded to low prices and the reduced premium over spring wheat.
Spring wheat acres were up 8.4 per cent to 18.78 million acres. In Saskatchewan total wheat edged down .4 per cent to 12.9 million acres with spring wheat up 11 per cent and durum falling off almost 18 per cent.
Lentil acres across Canada barely moved up by 11,000 acres to 3.8 million even with tariffs imposed by India.
Pea acreage went up almost one-fifth to 4.3 million with Saskatchewan adding 399,000 acres.
Barley acreage was up 14 per cent to 7.4 million in response to low stocks and increased feed need.
Similarly, oats was up 18.1 per cent to 3.6 million acres with this province expanding by 390,000 acres.
Grain corn acres across Canada were up 1.9 per cent to 3.7 million.
Ron Walter can be reached at [email protected]
