Canola futures are up Wednesday morning after Statistics Canada forecast the crop at 13.193 million tonnes, near the bottom of the range of analyst’s pre-report estimates.
The crop would be a record, but because the forecast is a little below expectations November canola was trading up $4.50 at $563.80 per tonne at 10:45 a.m. Saskatoon time.
Last week, Reuters polled 20 traders and analysts about Canadian crops. The range of forecasts for canola was 12.9 to 14.8 million tonnes with an average of 13.6 million. Last year, the crop was 11.87 million.
StatsCan pegged the harvested canola area at of 17.8 million acres with a strong Prairie-average yield of 32.3 bushels per acre.
Warm weather this summer has helped make up for late seeding this spring and crops in most of Saskatchewan and Alberta look good, although still a little behind normal development.
Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan have the worst production outlook because of prevented seeding this spring.
Manitoba’s summerfallow area increased to 2.7 million acres from 710,000 last year. Saskatchewan’s summerfallow area fell to 8.5 million acres from 9.2 million in 2010 and Alberta fell to 1.25 million acres from 1.65 million.
The other oilseed, flax, was the other surprise in the production forecast at 365,000 tonnes, short of the pre-report average estimate of 550,000 tonnes. Last year’s crop was 423,000 tonnes.
StatsCan’s all wheat forecast is 24.076 million tonnes.
That is more than the average of analysts’ forecasts for all wheat at 23.5 million tonnes. Last year’s crop was 23.167 million.
The spring wheat forecast was 17.365 million tonnes, down from last year’s 17.485 million.
Minneapolis wheat fell this morning, mostly due to a downturn in outside markets over worries about the economy, but it was also affected by the StatsCan report.
Most of the StatsCan forecasts were almost spot on the pre-report average estimates by analysts and traders.
StatsCan’s durum forecast is 3.749 million tonnes, very close to the average of analysts’ forecasts of 3.7 million tonnes. That is up almost 24 percent from last year’s 3.03 million.
StatsCan’s barley forecast is 8.274 million tonnes, very close to the analysts’ average of 8.3 million. Last year’s barley crop was 7.6 million tonnes.
StatsCan sees the oats crop at 2.886 million tonnes, also close to the pre report average guess of 2.9 million tonnes. Last year’s crop was 2.3 million
StatsCan put the Saskatchewan and Alberta pea forecast at 2.128 million tonnes, down from last year’s production in those two provinces of 2.8 million tonnes.
The July Farm Survey of 15,200 Canadian farmers is a preliminary survey of crop production in Canada. The survey was conducted from July 25 to Aug. 2. Farmers were asked to report their estimated area, yield and production of grains, oilseeds and special crops.
Final production estimates for 2011 will be released on Dec. 6, and are subject to revision for two years.
