North American grain/oilseed review: Canola falls with soy complex

By Phil Franz-Warkentin

Glacier FarmMedia MarketsFarm – The ICE Futures canola market was weaker on Monday, as losses in the Chicago soy complex following updated production estimates from the United States Department of Agriculture spilled over to weigh on values.

The USDA forecast U.S. soybean production at a new record of 4.589 billion bushels, beating trade estimates and sending soybean prices to their weakest levels in four years.

Ongoing uncertainty over Western Canadian crop conditions kept some caution in the canola market, although end user demand remained lackluster despite ideas that canola was looking attractively priced compared to other oilseeds.

“Canola is cheap, and buyers should be in here somewhere,” said an analyst, although he added that the demand had yet to materialize.

There were an estimated 38,832 contracts traded on Monday, which compares with Friday when 28,856 contracts traded. Spreading accounted for 18,308 of the contracts traded.

SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade fell to fresh four-year lows on Monday as the market reacted to the latest production estimates from the United States Department of Agriculture.

The government agency predicted record-large U.S. soybean yields for 2024/25 of 53.2 bushels per acre, which would be up from the 50.6 bu./ac seen in 2023/24.

Expected harvested area was raised by about a million acres from July to 86.3 million acres. That compares with 82.4 million acres in 2023/24. Total production came in well above trade guesses at 4.589 billion bushels, which would be up by about 400 million bushels on the year.

The USDA cut Argentina’s 2023/24 soybean crop by 500,000 tonnes, now at 49.0 million. Brazil’s production for both 2023/24 and 2024/25 were left unchanged from July at 153.0 million and 169.0 million tonnes respectively.

CORN yields were also above trade expectations at 183.1 bushels per acre, which was well above last year’s 177.3 bushels per acre. However, harvested area of 82.7 million acres would be well short of the 86.5 million harvested last year and total corn production at an estimated 15.147 billion bushels would be down by about 200 million on the year.

Corn futures moved higher as a result. A two-million tonne cut to Argentina’s corn 2023/24 corn production to 50.0 million tonnes was also supportive.

WHEAT was mixed, with gains in spring wheat and losses in the winter wheats.

Total U.S. wheat production for 2024/25 was estimated at 1.982 billion bushels by the USDA, which would be up from the 1.812 billion bushels grown last year.

Of that total, spring wheat came in below expectations at 544 million bushels, although that would still be up from 505 million bushels in 2023/24.