Good news, bad news for farmers

The Canadian Wheat Board racked up its strongest export sales in a decade for the crop year that ends today, but board officials say heavy rains have killed any chances of a repeat performance in the coming year.

CWB president and CEO Ian White told a Winnipeg news conference Friday record rainfall this past spring left 10.5 million acres of Prairie farmland unseeded this year.

And since then, heavy rains have essentially wiped out another 2.5 million acres that did get seeded.

"All that rain and all those unseeded acres are having a severe effect on production," he said.

The board is forecasting wheat production will drop to 15.6 million tonnes in the coming year from 18.8 million in 2009-10.

Durum production is expected to fall to 2.9 million tonnes from 5.5 million, while barley production is expected to decline by 1.5 million tonnes to 7.4 million tonnes.

White noted an unusually warm, dry September helped salvage what initially looked like a grim year for Prairie farmers in 2009, also because of excessive rain.

And even though the world market was saturated with grain this past crop year, the CWB was still able to export 18.8 million tonnes of the wheat, durum and barley Prairie farmers produced.

Not only was that the highest export total in a decade, it was a 400,000-tonne improvement from the previous crop year and 2.2 million tonnes above the 10-year average.

White said the CWB also returned $4.8 billion to Western Canadian grain farmers during the crop year.

Although it was the third-highest total in the past decade, it was well off the record of $7.2 billion set in the 2007-08 crop year, and the near-record of $7.1 billion from 2008-09.

The main reason for the lower return was weaker world grain prices.

White said wheat prices dropped from a high of about $8 per bushel in 2007-08 to as low as $5 a bushel earlier this year. Fortunately, they've since rebounded to about $6.80, he said, which is a pretty good price by historical standards.

While Prairie farmers are desperately hoping for another warm, dry September this year, White said even if they get it, they won't be able to match last year's total production because of all those acres that didn't get seeded or were subsequently wiped out.

But favourable weather conditions from here on in could still do wonders for the crops that have survived, he said, "so it (the current crop year) is not a write-off."

He noted CWB officials are forecasting average wheat yields this fall of 38 bushels per acre, which is one bushel per acre higher than last year's per-bushel average.

White told reporters that while this has been a tough year for many Prairie grain farmers, it's been particularly bad for the ones living in eastern and northern Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba and some areas east of Winnipeg. The heavy rains either prevented them from planting a crop or wiped out much of what was seeded.

CWB chairman Allen Oberg said the bad weather has taken a heavy toll on many Prairie farm families.

"Farmers are resilient, but when you cannot even get seed into the ground, it's devastating," the Forestburg, Alta., farmer said.

He said that in the coming year, the CWB's board of directors will be lobbying for changes to the federal Canadian Wheat Board Act that would give farmers more control over the board and its operations.

He said in a later interview that could be achieved by increasing the number of farmer-elected directors on the 15-member board -- there are 10 now -- and reducing the number of government appointees to two from the current five.

The board would also like to see the federal wheat-board minister's powers over the CWB curtailed.

"There needs to be some limits his powers," he added.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca

Seed for yourself

Here are some of the key numbers from the CWB's 2009-10 crop-year: $4.8 billion -- the net revenue returned to Western Canadian farmers during the year. That's the third-highest total in the past 10 years.

18.8 million -- number of tonnes of wheat, durum and barley exported during the year. That was highest total in the past 10 years.

400,000 -- the tonnage increase from the previous crop year.

13.6 million -- number of tonnes of wheat exported last year. That, too, was a 10-year high.

3.8 million -- number of tonnes of durum exported. That was the highest total in three years.

10.5 million -- number of acres left unseeded this year in Western Canada because of record-high rainfall.

2.5 million -- the number or acres of grain that has been ruined since it was seeded.

2 million -- the number of acres in Manitoba that were either unseeded or ruined after seeding.

Here are the key numbers from the board's crop-production forecast for the 2010-11 crop year, which begins Sunday:

15.6 million -- number of tonnes of wheat the board expects farmers to produce in 2010-11.

18.8 million -- the amount produced in 2009-10

2.9 million -- number of tonnes of durum they're expected to produce.

5.5 million -- the amount, in tonnes, they produced last year.

7.4 million -- number of tonnes of barley they're expected to produce in the new year.

8.9 million -- the amount they produced last year.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 31, 2010 B5