Even though it’s early in the 2023/24 marketing year, there’s already a lot going on for peas; some good and not so good. It was another challenging production year, with drought showing up again for some farmers, leading to the obvious comparison with 2021/22 when yields were cut back severely. Even though the 2023 Canadian pea crop was about the same size as the 2021 drought year, there are some big differences in the 2023/24 market that will affect the outlook.
The last crop estimate from StatsCan pegged 2023 pea production at 2.27 mln tonnes, down 34% from last year. That’s based on a sizable cut in acreage and a yield of 28.1 bu/acre, but there’s a good chance the crop isn’t quite that small. Yields from both Alberta Ag and Sask Ag crop reports were 34.6 and 29.4 bu/acre respectively, well above StatsCan’s provincial yields. If we plug in the crop report yields, the 2023 crop would be 2.61 mln tonnes, still not huge but supplies wouldn’t be quite as tight. One bit of good news is that the pea harvest was completed in good time and quality was above average.
Click here to see more...