The last few weeks have been a good time to catch up on neglected chores and paperwork at grain elevators across the Prairies.
Normally at this time of year elevators are running flat out, taking delivery of the new crop and shipping it out just as fast to meet export sales commitments.
This year, you can almost hear the tumbleweeds rolling through the nearly idle facilities.
“We’re 95 percent empty,” said Garry Klus, manager of the 10,000-tonne capacity Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevator in Ituna, Sask.
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“We’re always plugged and congested at this time of year. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Outside the elevator sit 38 rail cars, waiting to be loaded with grain that farmers haven’t been able to harvest in this most unco-operative of harvest seasons.
More than 90 percent of the farmers in his area haven’t even started taking off their crop, said Klus, so the pace is likely to remain slow for a while.
“We’re doing a bunch of cleaning and we’re out visiting with farmers to see how things are going,” he said.
Klus isn’t the only elevator manager feeling a little like the lonely Maytag repairman these days, as Canadian Grain Commission statistics indicate.
As of Sept. 18, elevators across the Prairies were averaging only 33 percent full, down from 85 percent last year.
As of Sept. 12, farmers had delivered 1.43 million tonnes of grain to primary elevators since Aug. 1, down from 3.48 million tonnes a year ago.
Brian Hayward, chief executive officer of Agricore United, said his company is lucky if it takes in 5,000 tonnes of grain a day at its country elevators, down from the 50,000 or 60,000 tonnes that would be expected at this time of year.
With less grain coming in, there is obviously less grain going out the other end. Again, the statistics tell the tale.
Rail car unloads at export terminals the week ending Sept. 18 totalled 3,271 cars. A year earlier, 5,259 cars were unloaded in the same week.
Stocks at terminal elevators Sept. 12 were 900,000 tonnes, down from 1.24 million a year ago.
As of Sept. 17, three vessels were loading grain in Vancouver and five were waiting, with the longest wait reaching 18 days.
Hayward said vessels are on demurrage – being paid to wait – although he offered no further details. The Canadian Wheat Board said that doesn’t apply to ships picking up CWB grain.
“We are not in a demurrage position and we haven’t had any problem meeting our current sales commitments,” said CWB spokesperson Louise Waldman.
Waldman also said the board remains active in the export market, despite the ongoing uncertainty over the quality and quantity of this year’s crop.
“We are being cautious on high protein, but we are certainly selling high grades of wheat right now,” she said. “We are not in a crisis situation.”
The board has lowered its projected 2004-05 export program by one million tonnes to 16.5-17.5 million tonnes.
Waldman said there are indications that harvest has picked up in the last week in many parts of the Prairies and that grain deliveries could start increasing shortly.
Canola deliveries have been slow so far this year, totalling 272,000 tonnes as of Sept. 12, compared with 800,00 tonnes last year and a three-year average of 642,000 tonnes.
With such a slow pace of new crop delivery, grain companies are scrambling to find enough seed to meet their sales commitments.
The companies say they’ve been able to do so, but at least one canola market watcher said that may involve obtaining canola seed from outside Canada to fill sales contracts.
“The standard operating line from the majority of companies is that there have been no cancellations, but the talk in the trade is that sales have been switched out of Canada to Europe and potentially Australia,” said Nolita Clyde of Ag Commodity Research.
A couple of shipments of canola that moved from Europe to Mexico were probably switched from Canada, she said, adding that switching to optional origins can be expensive for exporters.
