Soybeans Chasing Canola’s High-Stability Oil Markets

High-stability canola oil is gaining market share in food services and food manufacturing, but the soybean industry is fighting back. In 2010 the United States Department of Agriculture granted Monsanto’s new Vistive Gold soybean “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) status. Now companies can test Vistive Gold’s high-oleic oil in food, a prerequisite to commercialization. And

Oilseed Demand Outweighs Harvest Pressure

ICE Futures Canada canola contacts moved higher during the week ended Sept. 1, as production concerns, advances in outside markets, solid end-user demand, and fund buying all provided support. However, the futures did run into some solid resistance to the upside, and profit-taking at the highs served to limit the advances. Harvest operations are moving


Hedge Funds Hit The Fields To Check Out Crops

Except for the spiffy Hunter rainboots that can cost more than $100 a pair, the fund manager was one with the crowd – farmers and industry folk in a muddy cornfield in the heart of U.S. grain country. Hedge fund officials are making their way to fields in the midwestern United States in record numbers

In Brief… – for Sep. 1, 2011

More soybeans:Global soybean stocks will exceed estimates and keep soybean supplies in the upcoming 2011-12 season sufficient despite a lower-than-forecast crop, oilseeds analysts Oil Worldsaid Aug. 23. “World ending stocks of the 2010-11 season will be higher than expected at a record 75.8 million tonnes (on Aug. 31), approximately 10 million tonnes above a year


Big Canadian Crop Coming, Says StatsCan

While Canadian farmers will produce more wheat and a record-large canola crop in 2011, according to Statistic Canada, Manitoba’s crop production will be well below average. StatsCan estimated in its Aug. 24 report based on a July 11 survey all-wheat production of 24.076 million tonnes, up nearly four per cent from a year ago, and

Canola Trade Bullish Despite Big Forecast

Canola futures on the ICE Futures Canada trading platform posted some modest advances during the week ended Aug. 26 despite the fact that a crop production survey from Statistics Canada estimated output of the crop at a record-size level. The government agency’s survey for the period ended July 31 said canola production in Canada during


Sunflower Acres Look To Rebound In 2012

Manitoba sunflower crops are looking good, the problem is there just aren’t that many this year. More than half of the province’s sunflowers are grown in southwestern Manitoba National Sunflower Association of Canada (NSAC) president Kelly Dobson said Aug. 19, during a tour of the Manitoba Crop Evaluation Trials’ (MCVET) sunflower plots. A wet spring

Crop Report – for Sep. 1, 2011

SOUTHWEST REGION Little to no precipitation fell over the past week. Weather was favourable for harvest operations. Winter wheat and fall rye harvest is 90 per cent complete with yields below average. Most areas are reporting winter wheat yields in the 40 to 50 bushels/acre range with good quality and average protein. Several producers started


Dow Introduces Triple-Resistant Soybean

Dow AgroSciences is launching a genetically altered soybean seed aimed as a direct assault on the dominance of global seed leader Monsanto. Dow submitted a regulatory package on Aug. 19 seeking government approval for a glyphosate-tolerant soybean that the company says would be the “first-ever, three-gene,” herbicide-tolerant soybean. The new soybean will be tolerant of

Syngenta Sues Bunge Over Rejection Of GMO Corn Type

Syngenta Seeds, a unit of the world’s largest agrochemicals company Syngenta AG, has filed suit against major grain handler Bunge for refusing to accept a type of its biotech corn. Syngenta claims Bunge’s North America operations are illegally refusing to handle a type of genetically modified corn that is designed to protect the crop against