Agriculture Canada has dramatically tightened its 2023-24 outlook for dry peas.
In updated monthly supply-demand estimates released Monday, Ag Canada pegged dry pea ending stocks for the current marketing year at just 270,000 tonnes. That is down 300,000 tonnes from its December estimate and is now more than 45% below the 2022-23 ending stocks of almost 500,000. The monthly reduction also lowers the 2023-24 dry pea stocks-to-use ratio to 9% from 22%.
The entire reduction in the ending stocks estimate from December is due to a higher export forecast, which was raised to 2.2 million tonnes from 1.9 million.
Despite this month’s higher export forecast, expected shipments for the 2023-24 crop year are still 14% below the previous year’s 2.56 million – a decline Ag Canada blamed on the smaller 2023 Canadian crop, as well as increased competition from Russia.
According to Ag Canada, August-November pea exports amounted to 1 million tonnes, 8% lower than the same period the previous year, with China the biggest buyer at 700,000 tonnes. The US was the next largest single export destination at 70,000 tonnes.
The 2023-24 average dry pea price is estimated at $440/tonne this month, up $20 from the December forecast.
In other supply-demand changes this month, Ag Canada hacked its 2023-24 dry bean ending stocks forecast by 40,000 tonnes to 30,000 – also the result of a higher export estimate which rises to 390,000 tonnes from 350,000. If accurate, dry bean ending stocks would be less than half of the previous year’s 80,000 tonnes.
On the other hand, projected 2023-24 sunflower seed ending stocks were increased 5,000 tonnes from last month to 180,000 - up from 151,000 in 2022-23 and a new record high – as exports were trimmed an identical amount to 25,000.
With this month’s ending stocks increase, the 2023-24 sunflower stocks-to-use ratio now sits at a hefty 183%.
