Dry wind again sucked moisture from soils across most of the western Prairies last week.
The orange-colored area showing rain accumulation of less than 40 percent of average since the beginning of April grew again at the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration’s drought watch website at www.agr.ca/pfra/drought.htm.
Most of Alberta east of the foothills and a big part of central Saskatchewan have had less than 100 millimetres of moisture since last September.
The 23 percent cut in canola acres reported in Statistics Canada’s seeding intentions survey looks like it might be right. Farmers won’t want to put their expensive canola seed into dust.
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There is good moisture in Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan, but the situation in the West must have canola users worried.
The combination of a smaller crop, strong exports and good domestic demand this year almost cut in half last year’s burdensome carryover stocks.
And Agriculture Canada forecasts stocks will drop to only 500,000 tonnes by the end of 2001-02.
It expects Canada will have to cut exports to 3.4 million tonnes, down from an estimated 4.6 million this year. That is a drop of 26 percent and the smallest since 1997-98. Domestic crushing is expected to fall to 2.6 million tonnes, a drop of 13 percent and the smallest since 1994-95.
If this proves true, expect to see more temporary closures at some canola crushing plants. New customers in China and Mexico will either have to get canola from other countries or turn to the world’s large supply of soybeans.
Wheat news flip-flops
The United States Wheat Quality tour of winter wheat areas last week had dire assessments of the state of the crop.
The tour participants forecast a 20 percent smaller crop in the key state of Kansas and production problems in other winter wheat states, too. For a full account, see page 55.
But as the participants bid farewell to each other, it started to rain and the moisture continued through the weekend.
Wheat prices that had threatened to break into a major rally sank with the expectation of no further yield loss.
The next event with the potential to move the market is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s supply-demand report on May 10. Pre-report talk centred on an expected upward revision in Chinese wheat stocks.
