Preliminary estimates suggest better cereal crop quality this year compared to 2021, says Elaine Sopiwnyk, vice-president, technical services for Cereals Canada.
Formal results from the organization’s harvest assessment program are not yet available, but estimates from Cereals Canada’s weekly calls with the exporters that participate in the program suggest things look good.
“What we’ve heard so far is that it’s a complete turnaround from last year,” says Sopiwnyk. “We’re seeing a lot of high-quality material, primarily ones and twos, and not a lot of downgrading.”
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In terms of protein content for Canadian Western Red Soft wheat (CWRS) and Canadian Western Amber Durum wheat (CWAD), she says levels appear to be average or slightly above.
Normally by this time, Cereals Canada would have done its own assessment, but it has yet to receive enough samples from grain companies to compile a reliable composite.
“One of the reasons we have not received many samples at this time is that harvest conditions have been very good for producers,” says Sopiwnyk. With good harvest weather across most of the Prairies, she thinks farmers are busy combining and haven’t had time to deliver samples to elevators and shop around for pricing.
“When there’s bad weather, that’s when the grain companies tend to see more samples coming in.”
Harvest is almost complete in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and Manitoba is quickly catching up, so Sopiwnyk says she expects samples to soon start rolling in.
Cereals Canada receives samples of mainly CWRS, CWAD and Canadian Prairie Spring Red wheat (CPSR) from nine different grain companies across Western Canada. It then prepares its own composites to give importers an accurate representation of harvest quality.
“Making sure that we have proper representation of those companies in our composite is very important to make sure that the quality of data that we generate is realistic,” says Sopiwnyk.
