Canola declines, durum drops in new StatsCan estimates

MarketsFarm — There were very few surprises in Statistics Canada’s latest principal field crop production estimates released Friday — the first in 2021-22 to use a survey of producers.

Nevertheless, they quantified just how severe last summer’s drought was in Western Canada.

Canola production for the 2021-22 marketing year was estimated to be 12.595 million tonnes — a 1.5 per cent decline from September’s estimate of 12.782 million, but a 35.4 per cent drop from 2020-21’s total of 19.485 million. It would be Canada’s lowest annual production of canola since 2007.

Yields fell 40.2 per cent to 25 bushels per acre, erasing the effect of an 8.2 per cent rise in harvested area to 22.3 million acres.

MarketsFarm expert Bruce Burnett had pegged canola for lower production, as he had anticipated higher abandonment rates. StatsCan’s estimate was in line with pre-report trade estimates, which ranged from 11.5 million to 13 million tonnes.

“StatCan didn’t reduce abandonment for at least most of the major crops. That was probably my big surprise,” Burnett said. “Canola abandonment remained the same and yields were down slightly, so that gives us that slightly smaller number.”

Unlike those for most principal Canadian crops, production estimates for durum wheat fell sharply due to a high rate of abandonment. StatsCan projected 2.654 million tonnes, a 25.1 per cent fall from September’s estimate of 3.545 million and a 59.2 per cent drop from 2020-21’s total of 6.571 million. Pre-report trade estimates had durum between 3.2 million and 3.7 million tonnes.

“It was the one commodity StatCan made a substantive change in abandoned area,” Burnett said. “They increased that number to 3.6 per cent and yields dropped. If you look at the yields, they’re a little bit more in line with what Alberta Agriculture and Saskatchewan Agriculture would say in terms of their estimates on durum.

“It makes the durum situation extremely tight… It basically means that our export program this year will struggle in terms of how much durum we’ll be able to export this year.”

The estimate for total wheat production held mostly steady at 21.652 million tonnes — only 0.3 per cent lower than September’s, but 38.5 per cent lower than the 2020-21 production total of 35.183 million tonnes. Pre-report trade estimates had total wheat production between 19.3 million and 22 million tonnes.

Burnett added that barley, whose production estimate declined 2.7 per cent from September’s estimate to 6.948 million tonnes, was similar to canola in that production did not fall as much anticipated, but was still 35.3 per cent lower than the 10.741 million tonnes produced in 2020-21.

Oats was one of the few crops to see its December production estimate increase compared to September, but only by one per cent, to 2.606 million tonnes. However, the estimate was still 43.1 per cent smaller than its 2020-21 total of 4.576 million.

“We are facing very tight supplies and very low ending stocks this crop year,” Burnett said.

Corn, soybeans

Canadian corn production came in slightly below StatsCan’s earlier estimate but still ended up above the year-ago level. Meanwhile, the opposite was true for soybeans, with production revised higher from September, but still down on the year.

Corn production was projected to be 13.984 million tonnes for the 2021-22 marketing year. Just like for most crops in the latest report, StatsCan reduced its own projection for corn production by 2.7 per cent compared to September’s estimate. Despite the decrease, corn production is still projected to be 3.1 per cent higher than in 2020-21.

StatsCan revised its estimate for soybean production to exceed the six million-tonne mark at 6.272 million for 2021-22. The agency’s new projection is 6.6 per cent higher than its September estimate of 5.886 million tonnes. However, projections will fall just shy of the 2020-21 total of 6.359 million tonnes, representing a decline of 1.4 per cent.

Table: Quick summary of the Statistics Canada December principal field crop production estimates for 2021-22. September estimates, year-ago numbers and pre-report trade estimates included for comparison. Production in millions of metric tonnes. Source: Statistics Canada.