MarketsFarm — Canadian grain exports continue to run at a very solid pace, with canola, wheat and barley movement-to-date all up substantially on the year.
Total exports of Canada’s major grains and oilseeds as of Nov. 29 came in at 18.9 million tonnes, according to Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) data. That’s up by nearly five million tonnes from the same time the previous year.
Of that total, canola exports of 4.2 million tonnes during the first four months of the 2020-21 marketing year were well above both their average and the 3.1 million exported in 2019-20.
Wheat and barley exports are also running well ahead of average, with 6.7 million tonnes of wheat and 1.3 million tonnes of barley exported to-date. That compares with 5.3 million and 616,400 tonnes respectively the previous year.
Monthly data through October show Chinese demand for a number of Canadian crops is up substantially on the year, with 3.2 million tonnes of total Canadian exports to the country for the first quarter of the crop year. That’s roughly double what moved during the same time period in 2019.
At 666,200 tonnes, Chinese wheat purchases were up 146 per cent, while barley sales to the country were up 205 per cent, at 812,000. Chinese purchases of Canadian canola from August through October, at 716,000 tonnes, were up 87 per cent on the year. Peas were also moving to China at a solid pace, with nearly a million tonnes shipped as of October.
