Canadian farmers harvested 31.8 million tonnes of wheat this year
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Canadian farmers increased wheat production by more than 5 per cent this year, a new Statistics Canada report says.
Nationally, producers harvested 31.8 million tonnes of wheat in 2018, the principal field crops report says. That number is up 6 per cent from the 30 million tonnes of wheat produced in 2017.
Saskatchewan farmers made the largest increase in wheat production.
In that province, production jumped by 11.7 per cent year over year to 14.4 million tonnes. Farmers reached this provincial yield despite a lower average yield of 41.4 bushels per acre.
Stats Can’s findings are not surprising given the unconventional season, said Ken Rosaasen, a wheat grower near Yorkton, Sask.
“Weather conditions were highly variable across the province,” he told Farms.com. “You had some people who were extremely dry waiting for rain while others had snow which caused crops to lodge. It was very unusual for us to get so much snow over a large part of the unharvested crop.
“The snow created little or no movement for several weeks, which I’m sure resulted in some yield loss.”
In contrast to wheat, the Canadian canola production fell in 2018.
Growers across the country harvested 20.3 million tonnes of canola, compared to 21.3 million tonnes the year prior.
Canola production fell by 6.8 million tonnes in Alberta, the report says. Production rose by 1 per cent in Saskatchewan and by 5.4 per cent in Manitoba.
In the latter province, a larger harvested area outweighed a lower provincial yield, said Charles Fossay, a canola producer from Starbuck, Man. and president of Manitoba Canola Growers.
“Our seeded acreage was up by about 100,000 acres from 2017, so that offset any decreases in average yield,” he told Farms.com.
Different weather conditions in parts of the province contributed to varying yields, Fossay said.
“Central Manitoba had a good harvest that went fairly easily,” he said. “I was done harvest by the middle of August and many farmers in the area were pushing 50 bushels per acre because it was very dry and very hot during parts of the summer.
“The story was very different in Western Manitoba. Seeding was delayed, which mean harvest went a little later. The wet harvest in September slowed things down and in fact, there’s still some canola out in fields in that area."
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