WINNIPEG, Manitoba--Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada reduced production forecasts for several cereal, oilseed and pulse crops in its August outlook that led to revisions in exports, domestic usage and ending stocks, pointing to the drought in southern Alberta and western Saskatchewan.
While AAFC's call on 2023-24 canola production was held at 18.80 million metric tons, the department noted an error. "The imbalance between canola supplies and disappearance is reflected in the negative feed, waste and dockage and error estimate of 663,000 tons," the report said. "The negative FWD reflects an underestimation of the carryin and/or production for the crop year, these estimates are expected to be revised in an upcoming release of Statistics Canada's supply and disposition report."
StatCan is scheduled to issue its model-based production estimates on Aug. 29, followed by its stocks report on Sept. 8. The September report from AAFC is expected to more accurately reflect crop output for 2023-24.
MarketsFarm Pro analyst Mike Jubinville further explained the error. "The negative FWD number obviously cannot stand, but it's very likely an acknowledgement from the government that their 2022 canola production estimate of 18.1 MMT is not right, understated by at minimum of 500,000 to more likely around 700,000 tons," he said. "Now it is up to StatCan to make the correction, maybe in their September grain stocks report or maybe they delay it until their December production report."
All wheat 2023-24 production was lowered from 35.33 million tons in July to 33.21 million tons, and durum was cut from 5.70 million tons to 4.91 million tons.
"Drought conditions for the southern half of Alberta and southwest and west-central Saskatchewan lower the durum and the spring," Jubinville said. "They are still too high but working in the direction of lower in future reports I suspect."
Oats were trimmed from 2.82 million tons to 2.71 million tons.
Meanwhile, the department's soybean estimate stayed at 6.85 million tons.
Corn saw an increase from 14.53 million tons in July to 15.30 million tons, based on good growing conditions in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba, according to AAFC.
Source: Commodity News Service Canada, news@marketsfarm.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
08-21-23 1514ET
