Canada on track to be world's third-largest wheat exporter in '24-25 crop year
CTV
Canada is on track to be the world's third-largest wheat exporter for the second year in a row as crop production in the prairie provinces continues to increase.
Canada is on track to be the world's third-largest wheat exporter for the second year in a row as crop production in the prairie provinces continues to increase.
International data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows Canada overtaking Australia for the third-place spot in the 2023-2024 crop year, and predicts a similar ranking for 2024-25.
Canada is now behind only Russia and the European Union when it comes to volumes of wheat exports.
According to a 2024-25 outlook released last week by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, production of all principal field crops in the country is estimated to increase 1.8 per cent year-over-year, and 2.4 per cent above the previous five-year average.
Those figures reflect this fall's harvest, which is now largely complete, and show the impact of improved yields in Western Canada where drought conditions were not as severe as they had been the year before.
But Canada also ranked third for wheat production last year in spite of the drought, because Australian farmers suffered through their own weather-related challenges impacting crop volumes. Canada shipped close to 21.8 megatonnes of wheat to 65 countries in 2023-24, with the top five destinations being China, Indonesia, Japan, Bangladesh and the U.S., according to AAFC.
Justin Shepherd, an economist with Farm Credit Canada, said while the global rankings can fluctuate from year to year due to weather conditions in specific geographic areas, Canada as a whole has been increasing its wheat export volumes over time due to advances in agricultural research and crop genetics.
