Canada: Farmers planning to plant less barley, more wheat this year

Farmers across Canada are busy getting their crops planted and have told Statistics Canada what to expect, the Lethbridge News Now reported on May 7.

While they are planning to plant more wheat, oats, and corn for grain this year, seeding intentions for canola, soybeans, barley, dry peas, and lentils are expected to be down.

This information was collected from 11,500 farmers between March 2-30. It is only a preliminary estimate as COVID-19 restrictions lead to less data being available.

Nationally, farmers anticipate planting 7.2 million acres of barley in 2020, down 2.1 per cent, likely due to high barley stocks. Saskatchewan is expected to lead the decrease in barley area with a drop of 147,700 acres, Statistics Canada said.

As for wheat, Canada’s farmers expect to plant nationally 3.3 per cent more acres, or 25.4 million acres compared to 2019. They look to plant the same amount of spring wheat (18.8 million acres), but anticipate higher durum (up 6.8 per cent to 5.2 million acres) and winter wheat (up 53.5 per cent to 1.4 million acres).

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