Ontario farmers expected to plant more corn and soybeans

OTTAWA — Ontario farmers plan to plant more grain corn and soybeans this year. Farmers will plant 1.875 million acres of grain corn, says Statistics Canada, a five per cent increase over last year. Soybean acreage is also up with Ontario farmers intending to plant 2.450 million acres, just 2.1 per cent higher than last year.

Quebec farmers will plant about the same acreage of soybeans as last year, 598,000 acres, but corn acreage will be down slightly, just under a million acres.

In Manitoba, soybean acreage is expected to rise more than eight per cent over last year to 450,000 acres. Altogether soybean acreage across Canada is expected to rise 2.5 per cent to 3.5 million acres.

Prairie farmers intend to plant a record acreage of canola, 16.8 million acres. But Durum wheat production will fall by 2 million acres, one third the acreage of last year’s crop.

In Ontario, barley production is expected to slip from 180,000 acres to 175,000 acres. Total wheat production in Ontario will drop from over a million acres in 2009 to 895,000 acres. Fodder corn acreage is expected to be down 16 per cent.

Statistics Canada interviewed 13,800 Canadian farmers between March 24 and March 31. However, some farmers indicated they were still undecided at that time.