This week Statistics Canada released its latest production estimates on principal field crop production, posting some surprises on canola numbers.
Market analyst Brian Voth says the trade was expecting production to be roughly 18.1 million tonnes, with the highest estimates for the report around 20 million tonnes. However, in the actual report, Stats Can says it's only expecting 17 million tonnes of canola.
When taking the somewhat challenging growing season into account, Voth thinks Stats Canada's estimate is actually quite reasonable as compared to trade expectations, and perhaps even a little high.
"Right now Stats Canada is using a 38 bu/ac average yield, which, that's probably doable, but there's been an awful lot of disease this year too, and with how dry it was during the spring, we had a lot of patchy germination and emergence, and that's led to a lot of variability in fields," Voth says.
Because of similar disease and weather issues, Voth thinks Stats Canada's numbers on wheat could also be a bit high.
Source : Portageonline