Where do grains go? Wheat
Wheat is the third largest field crop in Ontario and each year the province produces on average, 2.35 million metric tones of wheat on 1 million acres, which is Eastern Canada’s largest heat producing province.
Ontario produces two different categories of wheat: winter and spring wheat. Within each category there are several different classes including: soft red winter, soft white winter, hard red winter, and hard red spring. Each category of wheat is used for different uses and is best suited to certain climates. Read about What wheat is grown in Ontario?
Wheat grown in the province is overwhelmingly soft red winter wheat, which accounts for 80% of production and is used mainly for cookies, crackers, pastries, cakes, coatings and in flour blends.
Smaller volumes of soft white winter, hard red winter, and hard red spring wheat make up the remaining production and are used in products such as cakes, cereals, breads, noodles, pasta, and pizza dough.
Did you know? One acre of grain is roughly the same size as 2.5 hockey rinks.
Ontario Use
Did you know that 54% of the wheat grown right here in Ontario actually stays in Ontario? Most of that wheat (25%) goes to milling to make flour to use for human consumption in products like crackers, cookies, cereals, cakes, pastries and more. Over the past few years, local demand has increased so more wheat is being milled locally for local products.
If Ontario wheat is not used in mills, it may be used in animal feed, as 27% of domestic wheat is used to make animal feed. Most of the time this animal feed is for swine and poultry because they consume the highest amount of wheat in feed rations.
Exports
Ontario exports 46% of its total wheat production. Most of that exported wheat is headed to places such as the United States and around the world such as Mexico, Nigeria, Brazil and the Dominican Republic. Did you know that quite a bit of Ontario wheat, roughly 10% is exported to our next-door neighbors in Quebec? Quebec uses Ontario wheat in the same way that Ontario uses Ontario wheat; for milling and animal feed.
Wheat exports and domestic feed use of wheat varies widely from year to year and is based on the quality of the crop, how much is grown here and pricing of the harvested wheat.