Ontario losing its share of Canada's soybean acres

Thursday, December 3, 2015

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

If you had to pick a winner in Canadian crop production this year, it might well be soybeans.

Indeed, Canada’s soybean production in 2015 is breaking records, indicates a Statistics Canada report released today.

According to the report of estimated principal field crops production, the country’s farmers produced 6.235 million tonnes of soybeans, up three per cent from 2014 numbers.

Ontario’s 3,592,500-tonnes soybean crop, however, declined five per cent from 2014 production. Moreover, although Ontario’s soybean numbers have changed little since 2012 (3,401,900 tonnes), its share of the national soybean crop has fallen. In 2012, Ontario farmers produced nearly 67 per cent of the country’s soybeans. This year, they produced 58 per cent.

Statistics Canada attributed the country’s bump in soybean yields to a rise in average yields — 42.4 bushels per acre (bu/A), up 2.2 bu/A from 2014. Harvested area actually fell across the country by 2.2 per cent, the report noted.

Ontario’s winter wheat production (1,333,600 tonnes) also saw a steep decline of 18 per cent from last year’s 1,627,500 tonnes.

Ontario’s grain corn production (8,839,600 tonnes) was a provincial winner, showing a 16 per cent increase over 2014 production numbers. That was slightly less than the 18 per cent increase in production of grain corn across the country.

The report attributed the national grain corn increase to both a growth in corn acreage  — up more than 200,000 acres to 3.2 million acres — and a 10.4 per cent increase in average bu/A yields. The average was nearly 165 bu/A. Overall, Canadian growers produced 13.6 million tonnes, the report estimates. Quebec producers saw their production rise by 24 per cent to 3.8 million tonnes.

The report attributed Ontario’s corn increase to a nearly 10 per cent growth in harvested area as well as more than a 10 bushel an acre gain in average yields this year (170.6 bu/A) from the 2014 yield average (160.9 bu/A).

For Don Kabbes, Great Lakes Grain marketing development manager, the StatsCan numbers held few surprises.

“We do a crop tour in early September every year and this year our soybean yield we had it pegged at 45.4 and now you know, miraculously, Stats Canada three months later comes out at 45.5,” says Kabbes.

The federal statistics gatherer’s corn numbers are similarly close to the grain marketer's early estimates. “In September we had the Ontario yield at 173 and people said we were too high at that point,” he says. “I’ll go right back to our crop tour back in September and say you know we managed to get into 4 or 500 different corn fields and I would totally agree with Stats Canada.”

Kabbes doubts Ontario’s shrinking share of Canada’s soybean acres would have much marketing impact for Ontario growers. “However, Ontario has to export half of its soybeans regardless, and if a Quebec soybean is going to have to compete with an Ontario bean that’s being exported up through the St. Lawrence, the Quebec bean might seem a better value than an Ontario bean,” he says.

Conversely, soybeans grown in cooler temperatures don’t have as good oil or protein content, he points out. “So there’s give and take to both sides of that equation. It is a bit of a risk but the world’s appetite for soybeans is pretty strong and marginally I don’t think it’s all that big of an issue today.” BF