Canadian corn stocks as of March 31 nudged higher from a year earlier, while soybean stocks plummeted.
A Statistics Canada grain stocks report on Wednesday showed total on-farm and commercial stockpiles of corn as of the end of March at 7.45 million tonnes, up 3.5% from the same time a year earlier although still down from 8.268 million on March 31, 2024.
Meanwhile, March 31 soybean stocks of 1.497 million tonnes were down 45.7% from a year ago and the lowest for the date since 2014 at 1.419 million. Lower soybean stocks were driven by a combination of lower total supply – down 11.4% to 7.4 million tonnes - and higher exports, up 6.6% to 4.7 million tonnes, StatsCan said.
National on-farm soybean stocks fell 69.4% from a year earlier to 541,000 tonnes, while commercial stocks dropped a much more modest 3.3% to 955,000.
For corn, Canadian on-farm stocks edged up 0.8% to 4.9 million tonnes, while commercial stocks rose 9.2% to 2.6 million tonnes.
In the top production province of Ontario, on-farm corn stocks as of March 31 were reported at 2.54 million tonnes, up from 2.433 million a year earlier but down from 2.695 on March 31, 2024. On-farm soybean stocks in the province were just 176,000 tonnes, down sharply from 896,000 and 615,000 the previous two years and the lowest for the date since 1989 at 160,000.
Manitoba on-farm corn stocks as of March 31 came in at 790,000 tonnes, up from 648,000 last year but down from 800,000 two years earlier. On-farm soybeans stocks were just 152,000 tonnes, down hard from 434,000 last year.
