AgroPages-Canadian famers intended to plant 23.8m acres wheat this year-Agricultural news

Canadian wheat sowings will drop less sharply than thought this year, as rising durum and winter wheat seedings outweigh a fall in spring wheat sowings.

Canola sowings, meanwhile, will fall, where markets were expecting an increase in area.

A survey of Canadian famers by Statistics Canada said they intended to plant 23.8m acres of wheat this year, a fall in sowings of 1.1% year on year.

A poll of analysts expected all-wheat acres to fall by about 910,000 acres, to 23.2m acres.

Spring wheat falls

"Canadian all-wheat acres were on high end of expectations," said Kim Rugel, at Benson Quinn Commodities.

Sowings of spring wheat, the main variety grown in Canada, are expected to fall by 6.3% year on year, to 16.0m acres.

Sowings of durum, the hard wheat variety used in pasta and pizza, are expected to grow by 5.2%, to 6.1m acres, while the acreage of winter wheat, planted last autumn, remaining for harvest is expected to jump by 31.6%, to 1.7m acres.

Prairie sowings rise

States show a diverging trend, as the Prairies, the country's grain basket and the main spring wheat and durum region, see falling plantings.

Spring wheat sowings are seen falling 9.6% in Saskatchewan, 1.8% in Alberta, and 3.4% in Manitoba.

But durum plantings are set to rise, with sowings in Saskatchewan, by far the top durum province, up 5.5% to 5.3m acres, the highest level since 2000.

Eastern Canada, where more winter wheat is grown, will see rising acreages, StatsCan said.

July spring wheat futures in Minneapolis fell, down by 0.3% to $5.56 a bushel.

Canola sowings drop, against expectations

But sowings of canola, the rapeseed variety grown in Canada, will fall, against analyst expectations.

Markets were expecting sowings to rise year on year, to 20.4m acres.

StasCan saw Canadian farmers sowing 19.3m acres of canola in 2016, down 3.7% year on year.

Sowings in Saskatchewan are expected to fall 2.6%, to 10.4m acres, while farmers in Alberta slash sowings by 7.8%.

July canola futures in Winnipeg rose by 1.4%, to C$500.30 a tonne.

Soybean sowings are also expected to fall, by 1.9% to 5.3m acres, as falling sowings in top-growing province Ontario outweigh rising acreages elsewhere.