July 31 stocks of most Canadian pulse and special crops, including both peas and lentils, were down from the year-ago level.
Monday’s Statistics Canada grain stocks report pegged total national lentil stocks as of July 31 – ending stocks for the 2023-24 crop year – at 179,000 tonnes, down 15.2% from the previous year and lowest since July 31, 2016, at 73,000.
On-farm lentil stocks were down 68.8% year-over-year to 29 000 tonnes, while commercial stocks rose 26.1% to 150 000. Lentil exports for 2023-24 were down 25.4% on the year to 1.6 million tonnes, StatsCan said.
Total stocks of dry peas fell 36.7% year over year to 348 000 tonnes as of July 31 – still up from 339,000 tonnes two years earlier.
On-farm pea stocks fell 70.7% to 103,000 tonnes, while commercial stocks increased 23.7% to 245,000 tonnes. Exports of dry peas fell 4.3% to 2.5 million tonnes.
At an estimated 44,000 tonnes, total July 31 canary seed stocks were down from 57,000 a year earlier and the lowest since July 31, 2020 at just 16,000 tonnes.
July 31 chickpea stocks were the lowest in six years at 22,000 tonnes, down from 93,000 and 176,000 tonnes the previous two years.
Total flax stocks came in at 165,000 tonnes, down from 220,000 on July 31, 2023, but up from just 82,000 on the same date in 2022.
On the other hand, mustard stocks as of July 31 were reported at 88,000 tonnes, versus 40,000 last year and only 16,000 on July 31, 2022.
Data on stocks of principal field crops held on farms on July 31, 2024, come from the June Field Crop Survey, which surveyed approximately 25,000 Canadian farmers from May 15 to June 12, 2024. Final estimates of on-farm stocks are produced as part of a supply and disposition exercise, which includes data related to commercial stocks as of July 31. Data on commercial stocks of special crops originate from a survey of handlers and agents of special crops.
