Canada’s 2025-26 canola crop will be coming off the field over the next few weeks, which will set the tone for pricing heading into the fall — but questions remain over just how much was grown a year ago, and which numbers to trust.
In the past few years, Statistics Canada has moved from their traditional survey-based methodology, to increasingly rely on satellite imagery and computer models for their estimates. Production numbers released in August and September are now compiled without any direct input from farmers, with the final surveyed numbers not out until December. Given the relative newness of the process, and general wariness of change, a common refrain amongst market watchers has been to question the veracity of the satellite data.
However, for canola at least, the model-based production data looks to have been spot on for the 2024-25 crop.
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In August 2024, StatCan forecast canola production that year at 19.5 million tonnes — which would have been up slightly from 2023. By September, the models cut 500,000 tonnes from the estimate placing the crop at just under 19 million tonnes. The farmer survey in December cut another million tonnes from the production number, leaving the trade working with only 17.8 million tonnes of official canola production to work with. That marked the second-smallest crop of the past decade, aside from the drought year in 2021.
Who to believe? The farmers on the ground (with a monetary incentive to underreport their crop size) or the satellites in the sky (several arms length removed from that same ground).
The truth, as always, is likely somewhere in the middle, but additional data that came out over the past year would seem to indicate that StatCan was correct the out of the gate on canola production in August 2024.
Usage
Both exports and the domestic crush were strong in 2024/25, with total canola exports by the end of July 2025 of 9.5 million tonnes up by 38 per cent on the year, according to Canadian Grain Commission data.
Back in December, when the canola crop was officially only 17.8 million tonnes, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada was forecasting canola exports would top out at 7.5 million tonnes in 2024/25. However, as the months progressed and the actual movement eventually topped that level, they were forced to make some creative adjustments to the balance sheets — posting a negative feed, waste and dockage number at one point.
Farmer deliveries kept moving into the commercial pipeline, so the country wasn’t out of canola and StatCan eventually raised their 2024 canola production estimate to 19.2 million tonnes — just shy of its original August 2024 call.
Stocks
While such a large jump was a bit surprising, revisions to past data are not unusual and more adjustments for 2024 should be expected.
Weekly CGC data showed 1.1 million tonnes of canola in the commercial pipeline as of July 31 — the last day of the 2024/25 marketing year. That’s exactly where AAFC was forecasting total ending stocks for the marketing year just ahead of that report. The total stocks include on farm supplies, and to have the bins completely empty would be unprecedented.
On farm canola ending stocks range from from 424,000 to 4.4 million tonnes over the past decade. Even a conservative estimate of 700,000 tonnes of on farm supplies at the end of the 2024/25 marketing year would necessitate an increase in last year’s production to bring it in line with 19.5 million tonnes or larger. The official ending stocks data, including on farm supplies, will be released in early September.
New crop
Politics and trade will remain key drivers in canola pricing looking forward, but the underlying reality of how much crop there actually is to sell remains ‘fundamental’.
Seeded canola area was down by about half a million acres on the year, but crop conditions have been reasonably favourable in many areas. Anecdotal reports would suggest decent yields, but tighter supplies overall should be expected.
Keep an eye on the shifting numbers. The computers were right on production the first time in 2024/25. What will the data show this marketing year?
