Domestic Canola Crush Rebounds in March

After dipping below 1 million tonnes for the first time in the 2025-26 marketing year in February, the Canadian canola crush rebounded in March. 

A Statistics Canada crush report Thursday pegged the March canola crush at 1.097 million tonnes, up a hefty 15.3% from February’s 951,353, and 7.1% above the same month last year. 

The year-to-date 2025-26 crush (August to March) now stands at 8.163 million tonnes, 4.1% above the same period a year earlier. As of the end of March, the cumulative crush for the current marketing year represented 68% of Agriculture Canada’s full year projection of 12 million – nearly identical to the previous year when the crush totaled 11.412 million tonnes. 

At the end of February, the 2025-26 crush was running 3.7% ahead of a year earlier and represented about 58% of the full-year crush forecast. 

In its April supply-demand update, Agriculture Canada left its 2025-26 canola crush forecast unchanged from March at 12 million but lifted its new-crop crush outlook by 500,000 tonnes to a new high of 13 million. 

Earlier this month, Cargill announced that its long-awaited canola processing plant in Regina is now up and running. Located at Saskatchewan’s Global Transportation Hub, the plant is expected to process up to 1 million tonnes of canola annually. 

According to the Canola Council of Canada, domestic canola processing capacity is expected to reach 15 million tonnes in 2026, a 40% increase from 2020.