Canadian wheat harvest 11 percent smaller

The wheat market is on the rise. A smaller Canadian crop, the faltering grain exports from the Black Sea region and new international tenders are supporting prices. There is also cautiously positive news in the soybean market, now that Brazil is forecasting the smallest acreage growth in twenty years. The December contract for wheat on the Matif closed yesterday €3.50 higher at €244.50 per tonne. On the CBoT wheat gained 2¼ cents to $7.30¾ per bushel. Corn lost 1½ cents on the Chicago exchange and came out at $5.34¼ per bushel. Soybeans closed 1¾ cents higher at $13.20½ per bushel. Statistics Canada (StatCan) has published a new estimate for the crop in Canada. According to the agency, the wheat harvest (spring, winter and durum wheat) will be 10.9% lower than last season at 36.1 million tonnes. The canola harvest is estimated at 22.1 million tonnes. That is 0.8% less than last season. Soybeans and corn have done better in Canada than last season. The soybean harvest is expected to be 7.8% larger than last season at 7.5 million tonnes. StatCan estimates the amount of corn harvested at 16.5 million tonnes, or 11.3% more than last season. The smaller wheat harvest is partly due to a contraction in acreage and partly due to less favorable growing conditions during the season. That the harvest would be lower was in any case to be expected after last season's record yields, according to StatCan. Especially on the Canadian prairies there are areas that received below average rainfall, causing the crops to stand only moderately. StatCan bases its yield estimate on satellite images and agro-climatic data. Insufficiently priced in The unrest in the Black Sea region is insufficiently priced in on the wheat market, says market bureau SovEcon. The transport routes for grain across the Black Sea are seriously disrupted and there is no prospect of a quick solution to the current impasse, SovEcon writes. In the period from July through September, an estimated 8 million tonnes of wheat is exported by Russia and Ukraine. Last year, over the same period, that was 16.2 million tonnes and the five-year average is 18.2 million tonnes. Russia has lowered the export duty on wheat by 2% to 1,146 rubles per tonne (approximately €11.82 per tonne). In Ukraine, the sowing of winter grains is getting off to a slow start. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture, 171,600 hectares of winter grain have been sown, or 3.3% of the expected total acreage. This autumn farmers are facing difficult challenges: in addition to military risks and financial problems, there is a shortage of soil moisture in a number of regions due to dry weather, writes Ukrainian Minister of Agriculture Taras Vysotsky in the explanation of the figures on the ministry's website. After a tender for 500,000 tonnes of wheat from Algeria earlier this week, a tender from Pakistan for 750,000 tonnes of wheat has also been closed. It may take a few more days before the results are officially announced, but according to some sources the sharpest bids for the Pakistani tender are around $349 per tonne C&F (free on board). By comparison, the Algerian tender came out at an average of about $320 per tonne C&F. India is struggling with expensive vegetable oils India is considering abolishing the import duty on vegetable oils, Reuters reports. Prices of vegetable oils on the Indian market are about 20% higher than last year. Indian consumers feel that in their wallets and it is fueling inflation, especially around the holidays in the period from September to November, Reuters writes. India is the world's largest importer of vegetable oil and imports large quantities of palm, soybean and sunflower oil from among others Malaysia, Indonesia, Argentina, Russia and Ukraine. Disruptions to logistics in the Black Sea region and extreme weather linked to the weather phenomenon El Niño are mentioned as causes of the sharply higher prices. Another piece of news that is cautiously bullish for soybeans came from Brazil. The Brazilian government agency Conab estimates that soybean acreage in the country will grow by 0.7% in season 2026/27 compared with last season to 49.3 million hectares. That is the smallest increase in acreage in twenty years. Total production is estimated at 181.6 million tonnes. That makes Conab's estimate well below the 186 million tonnes that the USDA used in the September edition of the Wasde report.