On Tim van der Hoek’s irrigated acres near Vauxhall, potatoes, seed canola and sugar beets are central to the bottom line, but CWRS and durum also play a key role. In fact, cereals reliably hold his high-value rotation together. Of his more than 3,000 acres, much is rented, all is irrigated. Potatoes and sugar beets are grown once every five years while cereals or corn fill out the balance. The cereal years can be the thinnest on the balance sheet, but they are essential to the good health of his operation.

Despite the encouragement of crop groups and conservation outfits, winter wheat acreage in Western Canada has decreased sharply to 2.7 million tonnes in 2022 from the record high of 4.8 million in 2008. A sign this trend may reverse, acreage has increased slightly in Manitoba where farmers have struggled to seed spring wheat in wet fields.

Prairie winter wheat acres have declined for years, but interest in the versatile crop has been revived. Its renewed appeal coincides with a changing of the guard in wheat breeding circles. Picking up where their predecessors left off, breeders Harwinder Sidhu and Curt McCartney aim to give farmers strong new varieties.

To be launched in November, the Habitat-Friendly Winter Wheat Ecolabel will create new opportunities for farmers and generate buzz among consumers about the environmental benefits of Canadian agriculture. This initiative is the product of collaboration driven by Cereals Canada and partners such as the Alberta Wheat Commission as well as additional crop groups, end-users and Ducks Unlimited Canada.

A shared value strategy under development in the Canadian grains sector will enable eco-labelling for products made using western Canadian winter wheat, a crop that has seen a years-long decline in Prairie acreage.

Farmer interest in various crops heats up and cools down from year to year. One crop that consistently gets the cold shoulder, however, is winter wheat. This has prompted some to ask why, and how can we break the ice in making winter wheat a hot commodity.