Higher prices let farmers weather low potato yield
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/11/2011 (5130 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
EXTREME weather carved a chunk out of Manitoba’s potato production this year, but high prices are helping to ease the pain for local producers.
Preliminary estimates issued Friday by Statistics Canada show Manitoba farmers harvested 38,102 fewer tonnes of potatoes this year — 825,552 versus 863,654 in 2010, for a decline of 4.4 per cent.
That was in spite of the fact they seeded 1,214 more hectares of land (29,543 versus 28,329) and harvested 809 more hectares of crop (28,329 versus 27,520).
Industry officials blamed the production decline on too much rain in the spring and too much heat during the summer.
“We had excessive rain until July 1 and then no rain after that,” said Wayne Rempel, president of Kroeker Farms in Winkler and a former vice-president of the Seed Potato Growers Association of Manitoba.
The summer drought conditions were accompanied by lots of hot weather, which also slowed the growth of potato plants, said Larry McIntosh, president and CEO of Peak of the Market, the provincial agency that regulates the packaging and marketing of potatoes in Manitoba.
“The yields in general were down, but the quality was good,” McIntosh said.
Rempel said higher potato prices are helping to take the sting out of this year’s smaller yields. They’re up about 30 per cent from a year ago due to lower yields through much of North America, he said.
He added that economically, it’s better for growers to have a bit smaller crop but higher prices than to have a bigger crop and low prices.
Statistics Canada said Manitoba’s yields this year are estimated at 29.14 tonnes per hectare, versus 31.38 in 2010.
But it said Manitoba’s total production was still second only to that of Prince Edward Island, which harvested just under 1.1 million tonnes of potatoes. That was down from just under 1.2 million tonnes in 2010.
Canada’s production total was also down this year, falling by four per cent to 4.2 million tonnes from 4.4 million in 2010.
Statistics Canada also blamed that on lower average yields — 29.83 tonnes per hectare versus 31.65 in 2010 — since Canadian farmers seeded and harvested more hectares of crop this year than in 2010.
murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca