After falling below 1 million tonnes in February, the Canadian canola crush rebounded in March.
A Statistics Canada canola crush report on Monday showed 1.02 million tonnes of canola was processed last month, up almost 142,000 tonnes or 16% from February, which marked the first time in five months the crush had fallen below the 1-million benchmark. The March crush was also 6.5% above the same month last year.
At 7.83 million tonnes, the cumulative 2024-25 crush was running 6.2% ahead of the previous year as of the end of March. That is 68% of Agriculture Canada’s full-year crush forecast of 11.5 million tonnes, potentially a new record high.
China’s 100% tariffs on imports of Canadian canola oil and meal were imposed on March 20, so the full impact of that has yet to be seen in StatsCan’s monthly crush reports. According to the Canola Council of Canada, total canola exports to China in 2024 were valued at almost $5 billion and included 2 million tonnes of canola meal, valued at $918 million and 15,351 tonnes of canola oil, valued at $20.6 million.
The March crush yielded 436,060 tonnes of canola oil, up from 373,427 in February and 410,916 last year. Canola meal production last month amounted to 607,348 tonnes, compared to 518,594 in February and 554,201 a year ago.
