Canada Markets

The April canola crush was reported at 706,762 metric tons, falling for the fifth time in six months, while still the fifth-largest monthly crush over the nine months of this crop year. This volume was down 21.6% from the same month in 2020-21 and down 17.1% from the three-year average for this month.

At the same time, this volume is above the 669,347 mt needed this month to stay on track to reach the April Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada crush demand forecast of 8.5 million metric tons, while AAFC has since reduced this forecast by 200,000 mt to 8.3 mmt in its May forecast.

Based on the April crush demand forecast of 8.5 mmt, roughly 657,000 mt/month of crush is needed for each of the final three months or last quarter of the 2021-22 crop year. When using AAFC's May revised forecast of 8.3 mmt crushed this crop year, this amount falls to roughly 590,208 mt needed to be crushed during each of the three remaining months. While the demand exists, the limiting factor will be the inventories remaining on farm.

The cumulative crush during nine months is reported at 6.529 mmt, down 17.8% from the same period last year. This is the lowest volume crushed during the first three-quarters of the crop year in six years. At the same time, this pace remains ahead of the steady pace needed to reach the April demand forecast of 8.5 mmt.

Canada's soybean crush was reported at 172,251 mt in April, the largest monthly crush in 23 months. Cumulative crush during eight months of this crop year total 1.258 mmt, up 9.7% from the same period last crop year while equal to the three-year average. The pace of crush remains slightly ahead of the pace needed to reach the current 1.8 mmt export forecast set by AAFC.

Cliff Jamieson can be reached at cliff.jamieson@dtn.com

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