Canadian grain exports were clipping along at a good pace as 2005 drew to a close.
During the first five months of the 2005-06 sales campaign, exporters shipped 10.7 million tonnes of the eight major grains, oilseeds and pulses, up 1.4 million tonnes over the same period a year earlier, according to the Canadian Grain Commission.
Barley shipments soared 922,700 tonnes while canola and pea exports were up 513,900 tonnes and 413,400 tonnes respectively. The only crop with a downturn in sales was wheat, which shrunk 735,500 tonnes from 2004-05 levels.
Canadian Wheat Board spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry said limited competition from Europe and the Black Sea region and lower ocean freight rates created market opportunities that enticed farmers to deliver feed barley to the board instead of selling it domestically during the first few months of the marketing year.
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“We accessed a lot (of barley) for export sale because the international price was attractive for farmers to sell to us,” said Fitzhenry.
During August, the board moved some of the significant carryover from the previous crop year, followed by higher-than-usual levels of new-crop barley in September and October.
But shipments are expected to slow in the new calendar year with a large barley crop coming in Australia.
“It’s not near as opportunistic at the moment,” she said.
Dave Hickling, vice-president of utilization with the Canola Council of Canada, said no single destination is solely responsible for thriving exports of the oilseed.
“We’ve certainly seen increased sales to some of our traditional customers such as Japan and Mexico.”
But occasional buyers like China and Pakistan are also in the market, as are new customers like the United Arab Emirates, which purchased 50,000 tonnes of Canadian canola for the first time ever in December.
A sizable spread between seed and oil prices is driving demand from crushers who are busy meeting the growing oil needs of Europe’s biodiesel industry.
“Compared to crushing soybeans, the crush margins for canola are quite good and that’s creating increased interest,” said Hickling.
Ian Luff, country operations manager for Louis Dreyfus, said Canada’s edible pea crop came off when world supplies were sapped.
“That gave us a very quick start to exporting peas as soon as the crop was available,” he said.
On the feed side, there was strong demand from Europe, especially out of Spain where dry conditions had limited the country’s supply of feed grains.
Canadian growers were willing to sell their feed peas at depressed prices because they had ample supplies due to quality problems with the pea crop, said Luff.
Fitzhenry said there is one main reason wheat hasn’t moved as well as the other crops: “Rail capacity issues are a big part of that.”
Canada’s biggest crop has lost out to some of the non-board grains when it comes to securing rail cars for west coast movement of the grain.
But she pointed out it is still early in the marketing season and there should be a full recovery for wheat starting in January when 400,000 tonnes originally predicted to be heading out in December should be on its way overseas.
“We expect the (2005-06 wheat) program to be not that much different at all from last year,” said Fitzhenry.
