It wasn’t a good year to be a crop farmer and Statistics Canada has the numbers to prove it.
Production of several major field crops, except for corn, fell across the country.
Manitoba saw wheat production decrease by 28.9 per cent to 3.8 million tonnes while yields fell by 21.9 per cent to 47.9 bushels per acre, according to StatCan.
Wheat yields across Canada fell by 38.5 per cent to 21.7 million tonnes with Saskatchewan taking the brunt of crop losses, seeing their yields plummet by 43.4 per cent to 26 bushels an acre.
It was hardly a banner year for canola, which fell to the lowest levels since 2007 with a 35.4 per cent drop in production.
Canola yields across Western Canada decreased by 40.2 per cent to only 25 bushels an acre. Despite Manitoba’s harvested area increasing by 0.3 per cent to 3.4 million acres, yields fell by 28.3 per cent resulting in 29.7 bushels an acre.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however, as StatCan says corn production increased by 3.1 per cent to 14 million tonnes despite a 1.3 per cent drop in harvested area across the country.
Ontario say corn yields jump by nearly 7 per cent to a record-high 175.2 bushels an acre, offsetting a 0.5 per cent decrease in harvested area.
Manitoba’s soybean production fell by just over 17 per cent even though farmers harvested more land; yields are down 27.3 per cent to 27.1 bushels an acre.