New-Crop Canola Ending Stocks Estimate Trimmed

Mar 20, 2024

Agriculture Canada has trimmed its new-crop canola ending stocks forecast in the wake of a smaller-than-expected planted area estimate.

Updated monthly supply-demand estimates from the government on Tuesday pegged 2024-25 canola ending stocks at 1.65 million tonnes, down 300,000 from the February projection and below the 2023-24 forecast of 2 million, which remains unchanged from last month. If accurate, new-crop canola ending stocks would again fall below the five-year average of 2.5 million tonnes.

The March supply-demand estimates reflect the Statistics Canada acreage report released earlier this month which reported 2024 Canadian canola intentions at 21.4 million acres, below Ag Canada’s forecast made in January of 21.7 million. Although Ag Canada did revise its new-crop canola yield estimate slightly higher from last month, the lower planted area estimate trimmed the government canola production forecast to 18.1 million tonnes from 18.365 million in February and below 18.328 million last year.

With projected 2024-25 exports and crush holding steady from last month at 7.7 million and 10.5 million tonnes – and other demand estimates little changed – the drop in production went straight to the bottom line and tightened the ending stocks estimate.

Ag Canada did lower its average canola price forecast, dropping it $20 from last month to $625/tonne, versus $685 for the current year.

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Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.