Agriculture Canada has officially recognized the 2025-26 canola balance sheet just isn’t going to work out.
In updated monthly supply-demand estimates on Wednesday, Ag Canada hiked its canola export forecast by 1 million tonnes from April to 8.5 million. With its total supply estimate unchanged at 20.742 million and projected ending stocks holding at a 12-year low of 1.3 million tonnes, the larger export forecast forced the government to revise feed, waste and dockage to a negative 609,000 tonnes versus last month’s estimate of 391,000.
The negative dockage figure is a temporary fix, giving Statistics Canada an opportunity to revise its 2024 canola production up from the current 17.845 million tonnes, thus boosting the total supply. Ag Canada could also raise its import forecast from 150,000 tonnes to further augment the supply side.
Market watchers and analysts have long suspected Statistics Canada underestimated the size of the 2024 canola crop, given the red-hot pace of exports and domestic use. For its part, the USDA is continuing to estimate last year’s Canadian canola production at 18.8 million tonnes.
The Canadian Grain Commission this week reported year-to-date canola exports for the week ended May 11 at just over 8.1 million tonnes. That is 66% ahead of last year and 22% ahead of the five-year average. The domestic crush, unchanged from last month at 11.5 million tonnes, was running 6% ahead of last year as of the end of March.
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