Agriculture Canada has bumped up its 2025-26 canola ending stocks estimate but tightened its wheat outlook.
In updated monthly supply-demand estimates released Wednesday, Ag Canada revised its canola ending stocks estimate 10,000 tonnes higher from the January estimate to 2.76 million tonnes, now almost 73% above the previous year’s 1.597 million and 39% above the five-year average.
The increase is due to a 10,000-tonne upward revision in the import forecast, which rises to 110,000 tonnes – still below 130,000 a year earlier.
In the wake of a tariff deal reached with Beijing back in January that will sharply lower Chinese levies on imports of Canadian canola to 15% from the current 84% effective March 1, Ag Canada left its 2025-26 canola export forecast steady from last month at 8.2 million tonnes.
In its commentary, Ag Canada noted that although Canadian canola exports to all destinations lagged last year’s pace by 35% through week 26 of the 2025-26 crop year, that still represents an improvement of 6 points from January. In other words, canola exports are at least starting to catch up after a slow start to the crop year, with China reportedly now buying again.
The 2025-26 canola crush was also left unchanged from January, holding at 12 million tonnes. For the crop year to the end of December, Statistics Canada reported about 5 million tonnes of canola seed had been crushed, 2% ahead of last year.
At $670/tonne, Ag Canada’s 2025-26 season average price forecast for canola is up $5 from last month and close to last year’s $677.
As for wheat, total 2025-26 ending stocks are forecast at 7.35 million tonnes this month, down from 7.5 million in January but still up sharply from 4.112 million in 2024-25.
At 1.45 million tonnes, durum ending stocks were trimmed 50,000 tonnes from last month due to an identical-sized increase in the export forecast to 5.4 million. However, durum ending stocks remain heavy compared to the previous year’s 496,000 tonnes.
Wheat (excl durum) ending stocks were cut 100,000 tonnes from last month to 5.9 million tonnes, also due to an upward revision in the export forecast to 23.3 million tonnes – now just slightly below last year’s record of 23.399 million. But as with durum, wheat ending stocks also remain considerably heavier than last year’s 3.616 million tonnes.
The durum and wheat (excl durum) price outlooks were unchanged from last month at $280 and $260/tonne, respectively.
In other supply-demand changes this month, 2025-26 barley stocks were dropped 100,000 from January to 1.6 million amid a higher export forecast – up 100,000 tonnes to 3.34 million.
Oat ending stocks fell to 750,000 tonnes from 830,000 in January as total domestic use was revised up to 1.126 million.
The oat price outlook was trimmed $5 from last month to $295/tonne, but barley was steady at $270.
