The Canadian canola crush touched its highest level of the 2022-23 marketing year in March and is now running even further ahead of the year-earlier pace.
A Statistics Canada report Thursday showed Canadian oilseed processors crushed 922,944 tonnes of canola in March, up 13.6% from the 812,001 tonnes crushed the previous month and easily topping the previous marketing year high of 885,331 tonnes notched in October. The March crush was also nearly 25% above the same month last year, with the year-to-date crush (Aug-March) now totalling 6.62 million tonnes, up 13.8% on the year.
Agriculture Canada is projecting this year’s total canola crush at 9.5 million tonnes, an increase of almost 1 million tonnes or 11% from 2021-22, when widespread drought slashed Prairie canola production by about one-third compared to a year earlier.
The 2022-23 cumulative canola crush was running about 12% ahead of a year earlier at the end of February, up from 10% ahead in January and just 5.6% in December.
The national soybean crush in March amounted to 154,670 tonnes, up 8.5% from February but still below the March 2022 crush of 167,333.
