W Canadian Crop Acres in 2000

[charliep]

Any early thoughts on what western Canadian farmers are going to seed in 2000? How big will the shift be out of oilseeds? What factors will be influencing your decisions over the next 6 months? Which crops budget the best? Will farm managers slip from rotations they are comfortable with? I am getting ready to write an article for SARM (Saskatchewan Association of Rural municipalities) so any help you can give me would be much appreciated.

[marcel]

I don't know what other farmers will do, but our situation is that we will actually be increasing our grain (wheat/barley) acres this year. The only reason for this is rotation constraints. In the future we are looking to decrease dependency on grain in our rotation. So our big decision this year will be what type of wheat and how much wheat vs. barley to seed on the acres dedicated to grain. Price outlooks/forecasts will play a big role in this decision as seeding time nears.

[craig]

I'm just starting to look at my seeding intentions and as far as I'm concerned we are in a no win situation. Why I say that is that if there is anything that looks better than the status quo( how much do you want to loose) we will likely see enough acres go into those crops to either add risk or reduce prices. Examples of this are the present winners( Malt barley, peas). Every farm and area had different winners and loosers for crops last year and that usually is a strong influence on next years plans. My cropping plans are not likely to deviate much from my rotational requirements. I may idle some land just to cut my loses and improve my options down the road. Like many I'm currently looking at options of getting out of grain farming or at least reducing my risk.

[kfournier]

I am a member of a marketing club from the Lloydminster area and we had some dissusion on this topic at our meeting yesterday. I don't see a shift out of the oilseeds in our area simply because even though the price stinks it pencils in as good as any altenative. There is very little flax grown in this area and I doubt there will be any next year. Pea area might increase simply because we had some terrific yields last year and farmers seem to base their decisions on the returns from a crop on the previous year. It sounds like there will be fewer oat acres because $1.00/bus just sounds to horrid to accept. The wheat and barley acres will probably remain about the same simply because they are easy to grow and if we're going to lose money no matter which crop we grow we might as well lose it growing something we feel comfortable with. Since this is a strong livestock area, there is lots of talk about seeding down to grass for cattle, bison and elk. Parture is very expensive and difficult to find. The talk at our meeting was that if there were any incentive by the government to encourage this switch, as in a set aside program, large acres would switch over quite rapidly. Since this seems unlikely, market forces will make a gradual switch until prices turn around. A market rally in any of the commodities will affect acres this spring as long as rotations allow. The one other big acre change that we will see is more fallow especially on crop share rented land. With all the pessimism farmers seem to be going into their shell (turtling) and trying to survive by risking less and that means less inputs. Is there a chance of posting your SARM report on this site?

[Ron]

I am looking at cps wheat because it worked well last year. On all other land (approx 60%) I would like to summerfallow and buy call options to replace the crop. If the market rises I can follow it up and if not I will limit my losses and improve my cropping choices for 2001 if I am still farming.

[brian99]

I dont think theres anywhere left to hide. Some of the perennial winners are amoung the worst alternatives this year. In this area special crops are terrible. Some companies are not paying for this years contracted seed crops. Forage crops just keep getting cheaper... The only bright spots are cattle(find the money to buy 'em), malt barley(theres going to be a whole lot planted this spring), and wheat(hey, its cheap to put in).The other alternative is cutting costs with summerfallow, and ride it out.

[rod]

We are 65 miles east of Regina. Have increased acres by about 650 this year. Canola down from 950 to 650, flax down from 750 to 400, peas up from 150 to 300, durum up from 370 to 750, HRSW up fro 0 to 250, barley up from 220 to 950, oats up from 60 to 150. I have got my overhead down to $60/acre so I feel $120 is break even and I can lock that in on most crops right now. I feel there is only upside potential on every crop.

[Mufferaw]

New Quad Track

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