Canadian spring wheat production up despite drought fears

Annual Canadian spring wheat production has been upped by 17% from last quarter, production data released by Statistics Canada showed Wednesday.

Fears over drought on the Prairies and above-average rain across Eastern Canada over the course of the year were not enough to move down its production forecast.

Headline figures showed wheat production decreased 5.5% on year to 30 million mt, with significant reductions seen on its durum and winter wheat crops.

However, with the bulk of Canadian production coming from its spring crop, numbers were up 8.4% on last year’s crop and 2.8% up on the five-year average at 22.17 million mt.

Wheat futures in Minneapolis took a tumble in the aftermath of the data release, dropping from an open at $6.30/bu to lows of $6.16/bu, ahead of a wider sell-off in wheat futures.

However, one analyst described the results as “in line with expectations,” noting they foresaw little obvious impact on the global grain trade following this year’s production beyond the initial sell-off on the futures market.

Corn production has been increased 6.8% on year to 14.1 million mt, and 3% on last quarter’s production estimate and 7.6% on Canada’s five-year average.

Soy, meanwhile, is up 17.8% on year at 7.7 million mt, unchanged from the previous estimate and 30% higher than the five-year average.