Barley Stocks Up; Oats Skyrocket

Canadian barley stocks as of July 31 were higher than a year earlier, but oat stockpiles absolutely skyrocketed. 

According to a Statistics Canada grain stocks report Friday, national oat stocks reached 1.275 million tonnes as of July 31, the official end of the 2022-23 marketing season. That was up roughly 283% from just 333,000 a year earlier and marks the highest oat ending stocks since 2008-09 at 1.52 million tonnes. 

The increase can of course be attributed to the big 2022 Canadian oat crop of over 5.2 million tonnes, which was spurred on by the record high prices that followed in the wake of the 2021 drought year when Canadian oat output fell to just 2.89 million tonnes. Still, the swelling in oat stocks was largely expected, with the average pre-report trade guess coming in at 1.2 million tonnes. Agriculture Canada’s August supply-demand update similarly had ending stocks at 1.25 million tonnes.