“The barley market through the last two weeks has ticked up a little bit,” said Jim Beusekom, grain broker at MarketPlace Commodities in Lethbridge, Alta. “Lethbridge is trading around $155 (per tonne), up from the lows of $145 in mid-January.”

The feed wheat market was the main driver of barley’s weakness during January, but a lack of farmer selling due to extremely low prices has led to the slight bump in prices.

“Producers just aren’t willing to sell their barley at any less than the lows we’ve seen in January,” he said, noting a lot of barley has already been sold this season.

“The producers have done a pretty good job selling their barley, so they don’t necessarily have to sell at this price level. It’s not a huge priority for them to continue to market their barley.

“There is some carry into the spring and summer market, so producers can sell forward and pick up a little extra,” he said. “Of course, the condition is that they can load and ship it in that time period.”

However, that could be troublesome considering the grain-moving problems producers have faced during the past few months.

Looking ahead, Beusekom said barley would likely see an increase in value during the spring months and farmers should use that as a selling opportunity.

“I think we’ll see our normal seasonal price increase throughout the springtime. Following that, you don’t want to be holding grain in late summer and into the fall. It’s got the potential of dropping further and possibly taking out the lows we’ve seen in January,” he said, adding he doesn’t see anything bullish on the horizon.

“I’m going to say that producers ought to be careful when they see the futures market start to rally and think that’s a trend change. Those are selling opportunities. There’s still too much grain and not enough demand to use up everything, so use those opportunities to sell.”

— Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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“I don’t think anything is going to happen in the short-term, meaning that pigs go to the same slaughterhouses and all that sort of thing,” said Brad Marceniuk, a provincial livestock economist in Saskatoon.

“The virus itself is not harmful to humans and it’s not harmful to the meat. It’s not a health issue at all. It’s just more of the piglets are getting sick and dying.”

As of last week, the virus had been confirmed in hogs on five farms in southwestern Ontario — most recently at a wean-to-finish operation in the Simcoe area on Friday (Jan. 31).

Off-farm sampling in Ontario also detected the virus at an assembly yard, trucking yard and, as of last Wednesday (Jan. 29), a pork packing plant. A hog slaughter plant north of Montreal had also previously detected the virus on an unloading dock. None of those findings were in animals.

While not immune to the virus, older pigs have much lower death rates than young piglets, with many just seeing delayed growth.

“What it tends to do with older pigs is slow their growth down,” Marceniuk said. “So, it may take an extra week for them to go to market.”

PEDv has had a major effect on upcoming futures contracts, he said, noting spring and summer contracts are seeing higher prices in anticipation of lower slaughter numbers.

“There’s an expectation that slaughter numbers will be reduced in March and April because of PEDv, so I think some of the futures prices may be a little stronger because of that,” he said.

“Today’s price is probably not reflected in it so much, because current slaughter numbers were slightly higher than last year.”

The cash market has also been very good for baby pigs.

“The U.S. market for baby pigs is very strong right now. Some guys in the U.S. who just finish pigs are having trouble finding small pigs, because a lot of them are dying,” Marceniuk said.

“If you look at last week’s price, a 40-pound pig was worth US$101 and a 12-lb. pig in the U.S. was worth about US$83 on the cash market. In the short term, baby pig prices are basically at record levels.”

There is no official number for the amount of pigs that have died from PEDv in the U.S., but some economists believe it could be as high as four million.

— Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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“It’s confirmation of the large crops that were produced this year,” said Mike Jubinville, president of Pro Farmer Canada. “I think generally speaking, the numbers fell within the range of expectations, so I don’t expect any lasting market influence to come out of this.

“We had a big reminder of the canola and wheat crops,” he added.

StatsCan pegged total all wheat stocks at 28.381 million tonnes as of Dec. 31, 2013 — up from the 20.610 million tonnes seen the previous year.

As for canola, total stocks came in at 12.597 million tonnes, up from 8.109 million a year earlier.

“The canola number was big and it was expected to be big,” said Ken Ball, a broker with PI Financial in Winnipeg. “It probably points to the possibility that the canola crop is a little bigger than last forecast, but nothing major.”

Even if canola usage increases this year, he added, carryout is still going to be extremely large.

“The problem is if you look at last year, we had 8.1 million tonnes in store and we ended up with a carryout of 600,000 tonnes,” Ball said. “That implies the usage of 7.5 million tonnes in the final six or seven months of the season. So presumably we’ll beat that usage rate this year, but even if we raise that to 8.5 million tonnes, we still have four million tonnes leftover. We have a lot of supply to chew through.”

StatsCan also had durum stocks at 5.342 million tonnes, up from 3.931 million last year. Barley came in higher as well, with total stocks pegged at 6.695 million tonnes, compared to 5.265 million seen last year. Oat stocks were pegged at 2.871 million tonnes, up from 2.055 million.

— Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

Table: A recap of Statistics Canada’s stocks report for the period ended Dec. 31, 2013. Figures in millions of metric tonnes.

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“Carryout will likely continue to see record stocks in Western Canada, so we’re not looking at anything friendly out of that number,” Keith Ferley of RBC Dominion Securities in Winnipeg.

According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Jan. 24 supply and demand estimates, every grain and oilseed crop is pegged to have higher ending stocks in 2013-14, with wheat and canola seeing the biggest jumps.

The StatsCan report will show supplies at the halfway point of the current crop year.

Despite the expected large numbers, Chuck Penner, president of LeftField Commodity Research, said the StatsCan report is unlikely to be a market mover.

“I don’t think there will be anything in there big enough to really move the markets. We know there’s lots of canola out there, and we know there’s lots of wheat,” he said. “Whether the canola stocks are enormous, or just huge, it isn’t going to move the market.”

“Even if they tinker the numbers, it’s not enough to make us go ‘Oh, I guess it’s actually tight.’ There’s nothing like that in the works.”

Ken Ball, a broker with PI Financial in Winnipeg, said that the report should verify if StatCan’s production estimates in December were on target.

“Obviously the stocks are going to be big, but will they be in line (with production numbers)?” he said. “It’s an interesting report, because when you have such an extraordinary crop number last year, the room for error is huge.”

— Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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“China is going to have to start cancelling, or we’re going to have to rally and ration some of this supply out there,” said Scott Capinegro, president of Barrington Commodity Brokers in Barrington, Illinois, before adding that the market won’t do much until it knows what China’s intentions are.

“Beans were in a penny and a half range for two hours on Tuesday (all figures US$). Whether they’re waiting to see Thursday’s exports and see if any cancellations show up, that’s a possibility. Trade is non-eventful.”

Capinegro noted that despite strong U.S. Department of Agriculture export inspections data on Monday, the concern of good South American production erased any hopes of a possible rally this week.

“Looking at the big picture, Monday’s export numbers were huge for beans, but here we are on Wednesday down below $12.80 (per bushel),” he said, noting Brazil is expected to harvest a record large crop due to great growing conditions.

“We’re lower for the week and beans are still lower for the year. So, the big picture says we know South America has a crop and it’s not going away. That’s the bottom line.”

Looking at the market in the near-term, Capinegro said it has the potential to swing wildly in either direction depending on China’s actions.

“I would say we could probably see a 50-cent (per bushel) drop from here” if China cancels U.S. shipments, he said. “We’re going to rally March back over $13 (per bushel) with no problem if they don’t cancel.”

Shifting focus to the corn market, prices continue to trade in a narrow range amid a lack of fresh news, he said.

“We’re in the same trading range that we’ve been in for the last four weeks,” he said. “And, we had a three-cent range on Tuesday. There’s just nothing to talk about with corn.”

Capinegro said the issue is that there is just too much corn, and when the market slightly rallies, growers sell.

“I know a lot of people who’d like to see it get up to US$4.40 per bushel on the futures, but everyday somebody in the U.S. sells corn out of his bin,” he said. “We’ve got a big crop.”

Looking forward, the corn market is expected to remain rangebound.

“There’s a February USDA report, but that’s nothing earth-shattering. It would be the March report that has the planting intentions and stuff like that,” Capinegro said, when looking at possible upcoming market movers. “We could stay very, very quiet.”

– Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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“From what I heard at CropSphere in Saskatoon, it sounds like people are thinking that pricing of flax will be good relative to the other commodities, so we’re looking forward to an increase in acreage,” he said. “It’s really all over the map, but I think we’ll see it at least 20 per cent up from last year.”

According to Statistics Canada, 1.035 million acres of flax were planted in 2013. If area does increase by roughly 20 per cent, acreage in 2014 would sit at 1.242 million acres. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada recently projected flax seeding at 1.236 million acres.

Hill said the success seen by recent flax crops, along with lower input costs, have farmers looking at it as a strong alternative crop.

“I think growers have had really good success with flax the last couple of years, and I think people are always looking at alternatives,” he said. “It’s a lower input crop than others, so I think the farmers are quite excited about it. Plus, the whole crop moved last year. We took carryout down fairly low last year, so that’s a plus.”

Some of the biggest growth came in Alberta, where acreage and production nearly doubled in 2013-14 from a year earlier.

“Alberta doesn’t have quite the same alternatives as the Manitoban farmer does in terms of soybeans, corn and some of the other crops. They need an alternative oilseed in their rotations to canola,” Hill said, when describing why acreage was up in this year and possibly next year.

“Plus, they’re close to the marketplace in China and they have a freight advantage there. I think all those things there are coming together to where the farmer in Alberta is viewing flax as a good alternative. I think we’ll see them grow more next year.”

As of Monday, the Johnston’s Daily grain price report has new-crop flax bids valued at $10.50 to $10.75 per bushel.

– Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

Related story:
Flax growers’ subsidy for Triffid tests soon ending, Jan. 25, 2014

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Prairie Ag Hotwire’s Friday report has delivered-to-elevator 2014-15 bids for yellow mustard pegged at 32 to 34 cents per pound, while brown is valued at 25.5 to 27 cents.

“I was up at the crop show (last week in Saskatoon) and I saw some pricing ideas, but not much from the dealers. I know the brokers had some prices (through the dealers), and I noticed they were down quite sharply from a week or two earlier,” Dyck said.

“We started contracting this week ourselves. In Canada, we’re at 38 cents (per pound) on yellow mustard and 33 cents on the brown mustard.”

While it’s still early, the initial response from growers regarding new-crop pricing has been generally positive, he added.

During the Saskatchewan Mustard Development Commission’s annual meeting at the Western Canadian Crop Production Show in Saskatoon, Kevin Dick of All Commodities Trading said Canadian mustard acreage is expected to increase by about 20-25 per cent, to 425,000 acres.

“I think it’s possible in light of high inventories of other grains that are currently in bins,” Dyck said. “I think it’s very possible that it will move up to that level for Canada, as historically, it’s not a huge increase by any stretch. The last two years we’ve been down in the mid-300,000s, so it does represent an increase.”

As for current crop prices, yellow and brown mustard have seen slight price declines since mid-December, Dyck said.

“Well, I think it just ties into what the other commodities are doing. They seem to be falling, so I think the bid levels for mustard may have dropped in light of that,” he said.

“There’s more supply out there than current demand and I think that’s also probably what it’s tied to. The whole industry seems to be in a little bit of a downtrend and the bids are reflecting that for mustard now.”

According to grain prices on Johnston’s Daily, yellow mustard is valued at 35 cents per pound; brown is pegged at 34 cents.

– Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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“It seems like they are both trading in the mid-C$150 (per tonne) range,” said Allen Pirness, senior trader at MarketPlace Commodities in Lethbridge.

According to the Alberta Canola Producers Commission, feed barley was valued at C$155 per tonne during the week of Jan. 6, while feed wheat was pegged at C$156 per tonne. Both commodities are significantly lower from their roughly $300-per-tonne highs seen in late spring and early summer.

Both commodities have yet to find a bottom, he added, as the wheat market is driving barley down with it.

“It seems to be that feed wheat is kind of in the driver’s seat right now and barley is in the process of getting its direction from the feed wheat market,” he said. “Any round lower will be driven by wheat, not barley alone. I don’t think barley by itself would necessarily have to go any lower, because it seems like in this market that there’s enough local demand.”

Looking ahead to February, Pirness said he expects the current price trend to continue, barring strong export sales.

“I don’t see that they have to be any different from now,” he said, noting that the cattle industry will likely further pressure the market. “A lot of cattle were placed last fall, so we’ve seen good demand right now.

“But as we move into the end of January, early February, we’ll probably be seeing some of those bigger cattle start to be replaced with smaller cattle. That could reduce demand for feed grain and maybe that puts some further pressure on prices.”

— Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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Canada’s 2013/14 canaryseed acreage was the lowest in recorded history, according to Statistics Canada, who pegged area at 200,000 acres. The previous low was in 1987/88 when farmers planted 205,000 acres.

“If you knew that the new crop price was going to be 22 Canadian cents (per pound), I think it would be attractive to producers relative to what other cereals are doing right now,” said Kevin Hursh, executive director for the Canaryseed Development Commission of Saskatchewan.

New-crop contracts could come as early as this week at the annual Western Canadian Crop Production Show in Saskatoon, he added.

Logistical issues seen moving grain across the Prairies during the fall and winter could also lead to farmers to look at planting more canaryseed in 2014.

“Producers wanting to sell canaryseed have been able to do so probably in a more timely fashion,” Hursh said, adding that a lot of crops it competes against will likely see large carryover stocks. “That may entice some people to take a look at canaryseed. But again, it’s still early.”

According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s monthly crop outlook report, released in December, carryout stocks are expected to decline drastically from 22,000 tonnes in 2012-13 to 5,000 tonnes in 2013-14.

The report also said exports are expected to slow by 12,000 tonnes in 2013-14 from the previous year. Hursh said that the slight decline in prices were due to slow export demand.

“From what I’ve seen and heard, demand is fairly light right now,” he said. “My understanding is that shipments are fairly consistent throughout the year and there isn’t a lot of seasonality to it.”

As of Tuesday, Prairie Ag Hotwire had FOB farm canaryseed valued between C21 and 22 cents per pound.

— Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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Introduced Thursday, the council’s new 10-year plan, titled Keep it Coming 2025, targets production of 26 million metric tonnes, with the average yield at 52 bushels per acre by 2025.

“That’s a bold target, no doubt about it,” council chairman Terry Youzwa, who farms at Nipawin, Sask., told a news conference in Winnipeg. “We believe it can be done and it can be done responsibly and sustainably.”

Reaching the 26 million-tonne mark, he added, will come through increased yields instead of significantly increasing the seeded area.

“It’s a yield target. We’re not significantly talking about increased acres,” he said. “As a canola grower, I’m convinced we can achieve 52 bushels per acre.”

A concern with an increased production target is if global demand can keep up. However, Youzwa said global canola oil demand is expected to grow in the next decade.

“Independent analysis commissioned by the Canola Council of Canada tells us that global oil demand will grow from 150 million tonnes in 2015 to 250 million tonnes by 2025,” he said. “And as populations earn more and learn more about healthy eating, the demand for healthy oil in their food will continue to increase.”

“System will adjust”

Another issue considered was the movement of a crop that size, as Western Canada has dealt with logistical issues all fall in attempting to move a large crop.

Patrick Van Osch, a vice-president at Winnipeg grain handling firm Richardson International, told the press conference he doesn’t expect moving the crop will be an issue; he expects the system to be prepared for it.

“What we’re proposing here is more of a macro strategy, and when you look at a macro strategy, we have 10, 11 years towards reaching the goal,” he said. “It’s our belief that overall, the system will adjust and prepare for it.

“When we came out with a target of seven million tonnes by 2007, the industry adjusted. There are investments made and organizations, companies, producers, railways, everybody is looking at the big picture and saying ‘Where is it going?’ and they’ll adjust their investments accordingly.”

With additional growth for protein in animal diets expected, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, there is potential for a larger market for canola meal as well.

“World markets are telling us they want the products we can provide. They’re telling us to keep it coming,” Youzwa said. “If we don’t rise to the occasion, our competitors will.”

— Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

Related story:
Canola tonnage poised to top industry’s 2015 target, Oct. 5, 2013

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