Prairie field crops in numbers

Why these numbers matter

Statistics Canada publishes the reference figures for Canadian field crops: how many acres were seeded and harvested, the average yield, total production and farm prices. Grain buyers, lenders, insurers, governments and farm families use them, and they set the scale of Prairie agriculture. This guide uses the most recent releases available in October 2026. Those are the survey-based estimates for 2025 published in The Daily on December 4, 2025, later revisions of those figures in table 32-10-0359-01, the seeded-area surveys of June 2025 and June 2026, and the model-based estimates for 2026 published on September 16, 2026. Each figure names the release it comes from, because the same year can carry different numbers in different releases.

Statistics Canada's estimates move through a fixed sequence each year. A March survey asks farmers what they intend to seed. A June survey records what they report having seeded. Model-based estimates in late summer combine satellite vegetation data, weather and earlier survey results to project yields before harvest is complete. A November survey, published in early December, gives the survey-based estimate of what was harvested. Later releases can then revise those figures as more information arrives.

How much is grown, and where

Saskatchewan is the largest producer of all three crops. In the June 2025 survey Saskatchewan farmers reported 14.0 million acres of wheat, of which 8.8 million were spring wheat and 5.1 million durum. Alberta reported 8.1 million acres of wheat and Manitoba 3.3 million. Across Canada, farmers reported 26.9 million acres of wheat and 21.5 million acres of canola in that survey.

For canola, the December 2025 release reports harvested area: 12.1 million acres in Saskatchewan, up 0.7 per cent from the year before, and 6.2 million acres in Alberta. Nationally, canola production reached 21.8 million tonnes in 2025, which the release describes as surpassing the previous production record set in 2017. National barley production rose 19.4 per cent to 9.7 million tonnes, while harvested barley area fell 4.9 per cent to 5.6 million acres.

In 2026 the pattern shifted. The June 2026 survey found that Canadian farmers seeded a record 23.4 million acres of canola, up 8.4 per cent from 2025. Saskatchewan led with 13.4 million acres, up 9.8 per cent. Total wheat area fell 5.9 per cent to 25.3 million acres, led by spring wheat, down 3.9 per cent to 18.1 million acres. Barley rose 9.3 per cent to 6.7 million acres. Areas like these shift with relative prices, rotations and conditions in the spring, so one year's mix is not a fixed feature of the region.

Saskatchewan average yields in 2025

Table 32-10-0359-01 gives Saskatchewan's revised 2025 average yields as 45.2 bushels per acre for canola, 57.3 for spring wheat and 78.2 for barley. The barley figure covers all barley, because the table has no separate series for malting or feed barley. These are the figures AgriNova AI's value calculator uses as defaults.

They are not the figures first published. The December 2025 release reported Saskatchewan canola at 44.4 bushels per acre, up 15.9 per cent from 2024. The September 2026 release then said Saskatchewan's 2026 canola yield was expected to fall 7.3 per cent to 41.9 bushels per acre, which only works against a 2025 base of about 45.2. That matches the revised table. Revisions like this are normal: the November survey closes before every bushel is counted, and later information from administrative sources and farm marketing data is folded in afterwards. Anyone quoting a yield should say which release it came from.

Why yields change from year to year

Prairie yields swing widely because almost all of the area depends on rainfall. Statistics Canada's own explanations in The Daily keep coming back to weather. For 2025 it reported that timely precipitation late in the season in Western Canada helped to push canola yields "to or near record highs in all three Prairie provinces", after a dry start to the summer. In 2021 the release said production fell "as the drought in Western Canada resulted in the lowest yield since 2007", with Saskatchewan canola yields down 48.5 per cent to 22.0 bushels per acre.

The national canola series in the figure shows how far one bad season falls below its neighbours. From 2018 to 2020 the average sat between about 40 and 42 bushels per acre. It fell to 28.4 in 2021, recovered to about 39 in 2022 to 2024, and reached 44.7 in the December 2025 release. The 2021 value also shows revision at work: the December 2021 release first published a national canola yield of 25.0 bushels per acre, and the current table shows 28.4.

For 2026, the September model-based estimate expects national canola yields to fall 8.3 per cent to 41.8 bushels per acre. Because harvested area is a record, production is expected to be almost unchanged at 22.1 million tonnes. Saskatchewan wheat is expected at 48.2 bushels per acre on 12.9 million harvested acres, with production down 9.7 per cent to 16.9 million tonnes. These are model results published before harvest ended. The survey-based estimate for 2026 is due in December 2026 and may differ.

Weather is the largest single driver, but it is not the only one. Seeding date, soil type and soil moisture going into spring, crop choice and rotation, hail, frost and harvest losses all move the average. A provincial average blends all of them across millions of acres, so it moves more slowly and less sharply than any one farm.

Reading the units

Statistics Canada publishes in both imperial and metric units. Prairie farms mostly talk in acres and bushels per acre. One hectare is 2.47105 acres, so 12.1 million acres of canola is about 4.9 million hectares. A bushel is a volume unit, so converting it to weight takes a standard weight for each crop. The conventions are 50 pounds for canola, 60 for wheat and 48 for barley, or 0.02268, 0.027216 and 0.021773 tonnes per bushel as printed in the Alberta Agriculture Statistics Yearbook.

With those factors, Saskatchewan's revised 2025 averages work out to about 2.53 tonnes per hectare for canola, 3.85 for spring wheat and 4.21 for barley. The bushel counts are not comparable across crops: 78.2 bushels of barley and 57.3 bushels of wheat are different weights, and canola's lower bushel count reflects both a lighter bushel and a different crop.

Seeded area and harvested area

Seeded area is the land farmers report having planted to a crop, collected in the spring. Harvested area is the part of that land actually taken off as grain. The gap can include land lost to flooding or hail, crops cut for feed instead of grain, and land not harvested before winter. Average yield is calculated on harvested area, so a year when weaker fields are abandoned can show a higher average yield than the crop as a whole deserved. When comparing figures, check that both are seeded or both are harvested.

What these numbers can and cannot tell a farm

• They can show the scale and mix of crops across a province and how it shifts between years.
• They can give a neutral starting point for a budget or a what-if calculation, as long as the source and year are stated.
• They can show how much a provincial average moves between good and poor seasons.
• They cannot show the yield of a particular farm, field or part of a field.
• They cannot tell soil zones, crop districts or rainfall bands apart within a province.
• They cannot explain why one field did better or worse than another.
• In-season and model-based figures are estimates that later releases may revise.

A provincial average of 45.2 bushels per acre for canola contains fields far above and far below it. A farm's own records, such as scale tickets, combine yield maps and field notes over several seasons, are a much better guide to its own fields than any provincial figure. AgriNova AI is developing a tool to help farms decide which fields to look at first. The figures in this guide are public context, not a measurement of any field.