Flax acres could drop again in 2023

Canadian flax acres dropped last year, but yields rebounded nicely in many areas. 

Chuck Penner with LeftField Commodity Research says we saw lower acres despite new crop bids of $24-25 a bushel.

He says that while acreage was down, yields rebounded allowing supplies to recover to where we were before the drought, but certainly not a big supply situation.

Unfortunately, flax exports this year have not been encouraging. 

Canada has three key buyers of flax that take about a third of the crop each, the U-S, China and the E.U.  

In 2022, Canada shipped some containers into China and the EU, but most of our flax exports this year went to the U-S, which has a limited market.

Penner points out that Russia and Kzachstan have been boosting their flax production which was having an impact for some sale opportunities.