Ontario’s corn acreage held steady while soybean acreage is down approximately 6% from last year. Statistics Canada released the planting estimates in its Principal Field Crops report on June 29.
Of note, the total area seeded to soybeans across Canada grew 1% to 5.5 million acres. Stats Can says this increase was the result of a rise in soybean acreage in Manitoba, which set a new record for the province this year.
In Ontario, the largest soybean producer in Canada, farmers seeded 2.7 million acres in 2016, down 6.4% from last year. Ontario farmers reported using genetically modified seed for almost two-thirds of this area.
Manitoba farmers seeded a record high of 1.6 million acres in 2016, up 17.3% from 2015. This was the ninth straight increase.
In Quebec, the area planted to soybeans was up 3.2% from the previous year to 803,100 acres; genetically modified seed accounted for 63% of this area.
Corn
Canadian farmers reported planting 3.3 million acres of corn for grain in 2016, a 1.7% increase from 2015.
In Ontario, farmers planted 2.1 million acres of corn for grain in 2016, an area similar to that of last year. The area seeded to corn for grain in Quebec edged down 1.4% compared with last year to 889,600 acres.
Farmers in Ontario reported that genetically modified seed made up 83% of their total planted areas of corn for grain, while for Quebec farmers, it accounted for 86%.
Meanwhile, farmers in Manitoba planted 325,000 acres of corn for grain in 2016, a 30% increase compared with last year.
Barley and oats
Nationally, the total area seeded to barley fell 2.2% from 2015 to 6.4 million acres. Alberta and Saskatchewan represented almost 90% of the total barley seeded area in 2016.
In Ontario, the acreage fell 13% to 100,000 acres.
The total acreage seeded to oats dropped 14.3% from 2015 to 2.9 million acres in 2016. Alberta was the only province where farmers reported an increase from the previous year in area seeded to oats.
Ontario’s acreage is pegged at 60,000, a drop of 54% from 130,000 in 2015.
Canola
Canadian farmers reported seeding 20.0 million acres of canola in 2016, down slightly (-0.4%) from the 20.1 million acres reported in 2015.
The overall decline in canola area was attributable to reduced seeded areas in Alberta (-4.3%) and Manitoba (-1.6%). Saskatchewan farmers reported a 2.1% increase from the previous year, seeding 10.9 million acres of canola in 2016. In comparison, farmers in Alberta reported seeding 5.8 million acres, while farmers in Manitoba planted 3.1 million acres.
Ontario farmers reported an acreage of 35,000, which was steady with the previous two years.
Wheat
Canadian farmers reported an overall decrease in the area sown to wheat this year, down 3.9% to 23.2 million acres. The decline was the result of a 9.2% drop in area seeded to spring wheat, which fell to 15.4 million acres in 2016. In contrast, the area seeded to durum wheat rose 4.8% to 6.1 million acres.
Lentils
Total area seeded to lentils reached a record high of 5.8 million acres in 2016, up 47.8% from the record set in 2015. Lentil area in Saskatchewan, which accounted for 90% of total acreage in Canada, rose 42.6% from last year to 5.3 million acres.In addition, Alberta farmers more than doubled their planted acres of lentils this year, up 126.0% to 565,000 acres.
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