Statistics Canada released highlights of the June 2023 Field Crops survey pertaining to the 2023 seeding areas of principal field crops.
Saskatchewan farmers indicated they planted more canola, spring wheat, durum wheat, barley, and mustard seed, and less lentils, dry field peas, oats, flax seed, and canary seed.
Producers planted 12.4 million acres of canola this year, up 8.8 percent compared to 2022.
9.1 million acres of spring wheat was seeded this year, an increase of 10 percent, while 5 million acres of durum wheat was seeded, up 2.2 percent from last year’s 4.9 million acres.
Seeded acreage for lentils fell to 3.2 million acres, a decrease of 15.1 percent from last year.
The biggest decrease was for oats, where farmers seeded just 1 million acres, down 45.3 percent.
A small increase in seeded acres for barley, 0.8 percent to 2.8 million acres.
Producers planted 1.6 million acres of dry field peas this year, down 11.7 percent from last year’s value of 1.8 million acres.
Regarding flax seed, there was a decrease in seeded acreage of 13.2 percent to 518,400 acres.
Farmers in the province planted 463,700 acres of mustard seed, up 15 percent from 2022.
Canary seed decreased 11 percent this year to 240,400 acres.
The 2023 estimates come from a survey of 7,137 Saskatchewan farmers conducted from May 15th to June 12th.