Above-average harvest for farmers

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This article was published 27/09/2017 (3108 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’ll be a while yet before all of the crops are in the bin, but one local farm industry official confirmed this week that 2017 was a better-than-average year for many of the province’s grain producers.

Keystone Agricultural Producers president Dan Mazier said most of the province’s canola and cereal-grain crops have been harvested, and, in most cases, the yields and the quality of the grain were very good.

“I would say that generally, especially with wheat and especially with canola, we’re above average,” he said, adding his wheat and canola crops were among the best he’s had in the 30 years that he’s been farming. “I would say they were in the top three.”

But he also planted soybeans and canary seed, and the harvest season for soybeans is only just getting underway, while the canary seed harvest hasn’t even begun yet. And with all of the rain that’s been falling in the last couple of weeks, there are no guarantees the rest of the harvest will go as smoothly or that the quality of the crop will be as good, he added.

He also noted Manitoba farmers planted two million acres of soybeans this year, and when you include the other later-seeded crops, there’s probably still 25 to 30 per cent of the province’s crop still in the fields.

“There’s still a lot of money sitting on the table, so I’m not getting really excited. Everything has been a surprise this year, so you don’t know until it’s all sitting in the bin.”

One veteran canola farmer south of Winnipeg said last month that, thanks to a wet spring and an unusually sunny, dry summer, he was harvesting his best canola crop ever. But Mazier noted there were other areas of the province that got too much rain. Farmers near The Pas, for example, could only plant about 10 per cent of their crops because it was too wet to get on their fields.

“So there were some parts of the province that didn’t have record crops. But I think, on average, it turned out to be better than anyone anticipated.”

That’s the message Angela Brackenreed, an agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, has been getting from many local agronomists and canola farmers.

“But I also know from talking to some of my contacts there were quite a few areas that were slightly below average or close to average (in terms of yields),” she said. “I think I can say with some confidence it’s going to be a very good crop at the end of the day, but as far as what our (overall) averages are, we just don’t know that yet.”

Mazier said with wheat and canola prices holding up well, many farmers should have some extra money in their pockets this winter.

“I think the really good news is that it (an above-average crop) is not only good for farmers, but good news for the economy, we probably just injected a billion dollars worth of commerce into the province of Manitoba.”

But he noted some farmers may opt to focus more on debt reduction or bumping up their retirement savings, rather than on expanding their operation or investing in a lot of new equipment.

He also noted that with all of the uncertainty surrounding the fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement and proposed changes to federal income laws, some farmers will be reluctant to go on a spending spree.

“I think they’re going to give everything a sober second thought,” he said.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca