Sarnia

Federal Analysts Predicting Less 2016-17 Canadian Corn Acreage

Federal officials expect world grain prices to be pressured downward this year but also expect the impact will be mitigated in this country by the low value of the Canadian dollar.

Agriculture and AgriFood Canada's latest outlook for principal field crops is predicting total crop production for 2016-17 in Canada to increase slightly.

While analysts are calling for the production and supply of grains and oilseeds in Canada to decline slightly, production of pulses and special crops is expected to increase significantly.

Wheat acreage is expected to drop by 2 per cent, despite a 24 per cent increase in winter wheat acreage.

Most of that increased winter wheat acreage comes from Ontario, where seeding conditions in the fall of 2015 were much better than the year before.

Agriculture and AgriFood Canada is forecasting the average crop year producer price for wheat will remain the same as it was in 2015-26.

The department's expecting a 4 per cent drop in corn acreage.

Some of that's based on the higher winter wheat acreage and competition from other crops.

Total production is forecast to fall by 11 per cent

The Chatham corn price for 2015-16 is expected to be lower than last year because of a softer U-S futures market.

And the Agriculture and AgriFood soybean acreage forecast for 2016-17 is expected to be up by 4 per cent from last year.

However, the department is predicting an 8 per cent decline in production based on yields declining to normal from the bumper crop of 2014-15.

Canadian Soybean prices are forecast to be similar to the 2015-16 crop year.

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