Statistics Canada will release its first survey-based production estimates for the 2025/26 crop year on Dec. 4, with general expectations for upward revisions to most major crops from the model-based estimates in September. However, as StatCan has shown a tendency to underestimate production in its December reports, many analysts expect actual production may be revised upward in subsequent reports.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada made only a handful of alterations for its November report on principal field crops. The only changes AAFC made were with all wheat and durum exports plus domestic use for all wheat and corn in the estimates released on Nov. 24. The report had been initially scheduled for Nov. 19, but AAFC said they chose to delay it until after the United States Department of Agriculture issued its November supply and demand estimates following the U.S. government shutdown.
Speculative fund traders were adding to a recently-established net short position in canola at the end of September, said the first Commitments of Traders report from the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) since the end of the U.S. federal government shutdown.
Canadian canola futures are poised to slip back in the short term, although the oilseed could climb slowly higher in the long term, said Jamie Wilton, trader with R.J. O’Brien in Winnipeg, Man.
China and India figured prominently in the September export data issued by the Canadian Grain Commission on Nov. 7. For the most part, the CGC’s numbers highlighted issues with grain, oilseed and pulse exports from licensed facilities to those countries.
With harvest pressure on canola over, the Canadian oilseed could track higher until spring, said David Derwin, commodity futures advisor for Ventum Financial in Winnipeg, Man. Although he cautioned there will be some rough patches along the way.
With Alberta’s harvest virtually wrapped up for 2025, provincial Agriculture Minister RJ Sigurdson offered the government’s congratulations to the province’s farmers.