With production down, Canadian stocks of corn and soybeans as of Dec. 31, 2019 were lighter compared to a year earlier, according to a Statistics Canada grain stocks report on Wednesday.
The report put total national corn stocks as of Dec. 31 at 10.68 million tonnes, down 8.1% on the year, while soybean stocks were reported 9.4% lower at 3.87 million tonnes. The lower stock levels can be attributed to smaller 2019 crops, with 2019 corn output falling about 3.5% from a year earlier to 13.4 million tonnes, and soybean production down 18.5% to 6.04 million.
For corn, national on-farm stocks as of Dec. 31 were down 5.8% to 8.02 million tonnes, while commercial stocks decreased 14.3% to 2.66 million.
On-farm corn stocks in the largest production province of Ontario were estimated at 4.9 million tonnes, up 200,000 from the previous year. However, on-farm stocks in Manitoba were down to 771,000 tonnes from 900,000 and Quebec stocks declined to 2.29 million tonnes from 2.8 million.
National on-farm soybean stocks as of Dec. 31 were down 14.2% to 2.44 million tonnes, and commercial stocks were unchanged from a year earlier at 1.43 million tonnes.
On-farm Ontario soybean stocks were pegged at 1.4 million tonnes, down just 80,000 from the previous year, while Manitoba on-farm stocks declined much more precipitously, falling to 480,000 tonnes from 700,000. On-farm soybean stocks in Quebec were reported at 505,000 tones, a drop of 80,000 from the previous year.
Source : Syngenta