Farmers will produce the world’s smallest wheat crop in three years in 2010 as big global supplies weigh on prices and steer more hectares to other crops, the Canadian Wheat Board said Friday.
In its first market outlook of the year, the wheat board, one of the world’s biggest grain marketers, also said the outlook for durum wheat is negative because of burdensome supplies.
“It’s not that world (wheat) demand has been extremely poor. It’s just that our production has been quite high,” said Bruce Burnett, the wheat board’s director of weather and market analysis.
The world will produce 644 million tonnes of all types of wheat, down 4.7 per cent from the 2009 crop, he said. It would be the smallest global wheat crop since farmers harvested 610 million tonnes in 2007, but still the third largest in the past 15 years.
Weak prices due to the global wheat glut will cause Canadian farmers to plant slightly less spring wheat, used in baking, but significantly fewer hectares of durum wheat, Burnett said.
That shift, along with an expected drop to normal yields, will produce Canada’s smallest all-wheat crop in three years of 24 million tonnes as farmers move to oilseeds and pulse crops that look more profitable, Burnett said.
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In the never ending spiral of costs going up and returns going down it isn’t hard to see why production has been going up over the last several years. That was the only way farmers can see any profit. However, even that must end at some point in time as supplies overtake demand. What crops many farmers will turn to now remains to be seen. Pulse and oilseeds can only be grown in a rotation program, so what is frown in between I don’t know. I can’t think of any that will give a grain farmer a reasonable return for their efforts. Not much reason to turn to livestock production as it is in the dumps as well.
Tough time to be a farmer of any description…
In my area just north of Toronto which is predomately argicultural, many family farms are being bought up by large corporations, foreigners and developers. The day of the family farm is passing into history.
And why would that be, UV? Do they expect to make a buck in the near future?
I’m thinking about millions starving to death and Canada as the breadbasket of the world.
Why would this happen?
Jack, there are many reasons according to my farming friends. One has to be a gambler of sorts to be a farmer with problems involving the ever rising fuel costs (diesel); poor weather; unpredictable pricing for cash crops, beef etc; rising fertilizer prices; expensive machiney like tractors, combines; animal diseases & related medicines and more recently problems obtaining credit to carry them through between growing seasons.
So when a buyer comes along with big cash, some of them sell.
Imagine if your friends were in the west and forcibly bound to the Canadian Wheat Board…
I believe that there are some marketing boards here in Ontario but for eggs & milk. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I believe you’re right but when was the last time you heard about a farmer being jailed for selling eggs or milk outside of the marking board?
Mac:
Check the recent news stories about the B.C. milk board “police” actions.
There is a large difference between the Wheat Board and the Milk and Egg boards. Milk and Egg boards actually control the prices of milk and eggs in Canada. The Wheat Board relies on world prices. Dairy and Egg farmers are guaranteed a profit while grain farmers are at the mercy of crop success/crop failure across the world.
Wheat is the last straw for the crooks at the CWB, for this reason (farmers are forced to sell wheat through the CWB in Western Canada) farmers in the west are growing anything but wheat. The praries produce the best no 1 hard wheat grain in the world. UV, the Right to own Property is the key to prosperity in any country – we should all be demanding that right.
One other reason for the farming dilemma is the fact that most of our farmers are over the age of 50 and looking to retirement.There are fewer young people taking over the reins. High land costs as well as machinery and input costs coupled with a meagre return discourages many from even thinking about a career in farming. One can make a better living driving a truck. I am noticing that many young people farming these days hold down a off farm job. Their spouses work as well. This is to keep the farm going. These people prefer the rural way of life. It is sad to see this happening but that is the fact of present day agriculture.
a loaf of bread is close to 3 bucks, the farmer and the consumer, in lock step, marching down the road to being screwed
Again, correct me if I’m wrong but do Ontario’s egg & milk marketing boards control how much a farmer can produce of each product?
Also, is it true that other farmers wanting to produce these commodities are blocked unless they purchase someones licence/quota to produce?
If its true, doesnt sound like a very capatilistic system to me.
In addition to DC’s comments, I believe farmers have no pension & extended health care plans. Many farmers in my area supplement their income by driving school bus, part-time
Marketing boards across Canada control the products farmers produce. They set the quota and price the farmers receive. They also set the RETAIL prices retailers get for these products ensuring that the producer gets his fair share. The Canadian Wheat Board, which controls wheat and designated barley grown in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and part of B.C. sets the price farmers get according the world market less shipping, handling, storage and CWB marketing fees. This applies mainly to grains exported from Canada but is not limited to export as wheat, barley used in bread, or malt for beer as an example are also controlled by the CWB. This, U.V. is basically how grains grown in Canada are democratically produced.
Re #5. The issue at hand is grain not cattle or the cost to treat animal disease. The reasons listed as the downside to farming have existed for decades and longer. They sure as heck were alive and well over 30+ yrs ago. I know, I rented a house right on a working farm for 3 years and helped out just for the heck of it (on my days off). For even more years I continued to work directly in and with the farming community. I became very close both professionally and socially with that community during that time. I personally knew more than enough farmers who were in dire financial straits or on the verge of bankrupsy who at the very same time had overflowing grain bins that they could not sell to save themselves because the Western Canadian Wheat Board wouldn’t let them. Yes, Jack there’s got to be some money or just mindless destructive ideology (think California) behind what’s going on, but it’s not destined for the farmer’s pockets.
Subject: the CWB. I have been retired from farming for several years. It has been many more since I sold grain through the CWB. At that time the farmer received an initial payment when he sold his grain. The balance was paid at the end of the crop year (End of July) after the CWB calculated the average price for grain on the world market. This was applied to initial payment and the balance was paid to the farmer. One year the world price dropped after the initial payment was made and I was forced to give a refund to the CWB. That sucks. I know some changes have been made to CWB policies since that time but I think they still suck.
This has got me to thinking of the time my partner and I were sent out to provide security for the Sheriff as he seized a farmer’s tractor for being unable to make his payments. It wasn’t even a top end tractor, very basic not even enclosed cab. This farmer’s grain bins were full but he couldn’t sell any of it. The farmer’s wife and kids were there, all distraught, the wife crying the farmer extremely angry and pleading that if we took his tractor he wouldn’t even be able to haul bales of hay to feed the few cattle he had for food and an extra few bucks. I remember clearly how sick I felt about what was being done to this family. I was at angry at ‘the system’, and would have much preferred to be there to protect the farmer’s property from the state. He had the grain which was the money to pay his bills, but they wouldn’t let him. Now I’m all pissed off thinking about it again and this happened about 1987 or so! Lots of times being a cop really really sucked.
Perhaps some of you remember Andy McMeckin. He was the farmer who transported a truck load of grain into the USA and for his efforts was dragged into court in leg irons to face charges of exporting grain without a CWB permit. The CBC program The Fifth Estate ran a story on this incident. Throughout the story they portrayed a picture of a skull and crossbones which with the dialogue depicted Andy as a serious criminal. This happened at least 15 years ago and I have never watched the Fifth Estate or the CBC since. So much for free enterprise and democracy in Canada.
Thanks for the above reports and support FOR agriculture. “If you’ve eaten today, thank a FARMER!”
D.C. there were a couple of times where we received info that this farmer or that had snuck a semiload of grain across the border and sold it for hard cold cash. I worked at a border detachment for a number of years and especially in the winter there were countless isolated backroads across fields into and back out of the USA. So easy to investigate, get the Sheriff’s Dept. on the U.S. side to go to the elevator to seize and turn over the records of the delivery to us, case closed. It rarely comes any easier. But son of a gun, we simply couldn’t ever find the time (priorities and all that) to follow up on the info, let alone pass it along the line to the ‘politburo’ at the CWB and the wolves at Revenue Canada. When it came to this ’so-called crime’ those particular farmers were never aware that they had allies in the most unexpected place and that’s exactly how it was meant to be.
D.C. – barley is now off the ‘hit list’ for western farmers – farmers thank Mr. Ritz! The ag critic on the liberano side (from PEI) was foaming and ranting in the HOC when this vote result came down the pipes – he must have ‘friends’ at Budweiser.