Report predicts more corn and oats ahead for Ontario farmers

Thursday, April 23, 2015

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario farmers unable to plant winter wheat in the fall due to the late soybean harvest, but needing straw this year may be looking to plant a whole lot more oats.

Statistics Canada’s planting intentions for principal field crops, March 2015 report indicates oat acreage in Ontario may be up 78 per cent this year to 125,000 acres from 70,000 acres last year.

Barry Senft, CEO of Grain Farmers of Ontario, says “part of the wheat acres that didn’t go in (during the fall) is going to go into oats. What I’m hearing is guys need some straw and if they don’t get it from wheat, oats may be the alternative.”

Senft says a big question remaining is where will the wheat acres not planted in the fall go this year that aren’t being used to grow oats.

Wheat plantings will be down about 22 per cent this year compared to last year with 675,000 acres seeded in the fall compared to 865,000 seeded the previous fall, according to Statistics Canada. The amount left after winterkill is also down this year compared to last year by 16.1 per cent. This year there are 650,000 acres remaining compared to 775,000 acres remaining in 2014.

Corn acres in Ontario are pegged to be up 11.5 per cent to 2.1 million acres this year compared to 1.9 million acres last year, while soybean acres will decline by 6.5 per cent to 2.9 million acres this year from slightly more than three million acres in 2014.

Part of the reason for the increase in corn planting intentions may be farmers “are looking at a more normal spring in Ontario than we had a year ago. Last spring, we had a tough go at it and I think some acres go switched,” Senft explains, adding price outlooks would have been another factor weighing in farmers’ decisions last year to plant more soybeans and less corn.

“The late spring just gave people concern about planting corn and more soybeans went in because of that,” he says.

For this year, “people are getting back to normal,” he explains, noting the planting intention numbers are similar to the five-year average numbers for plantings in Ontario.

Canola acreage is projected to remain the same this year compared to last year at 35,000 acres. White and coloured bean plantings will be up 2.4 per cent to 128,000 acres this year from 125,000 acres in 2014. Corn for fodder will decline 7.8 per cent this year to 23,500 acres from 25,500 acres in 2014. BF