MarketsFarm — Statistics Canada (StatCan) on Tuesday released its report on grain stocks at March 31, with MarketsFarm Pro analyst Mike Jubinville suggesting there’s not much to the report.
“It’s one of those [reports] where people look at it and move on,” he said.
StatCan’s report pegged total farm and commercial stocks of chickpeas at 112,000 tonnes, down 58.5 per cent from a year ago. That’s also well below the five-year average of 244,400 tonnes and the smallest March chickpea stock number since the 53,000 tonnes in 2018.
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Total March lentil stocks came in at 900,000 tonnes, which shrunk 13.6 per cent from March 31, 2022. As well, the current stocks were nearly 600,000 tonnes under the five-year average.
As for dry peas, their farm and commercial stocks tallied 1.471 million tonnes, up 22.4 per cent from the previous March. However, they were short of the five-year average of 1.826 million tonnes.
Jubinville said the numbers for peas and lentils were very unlikely to have notable impact on their respective prices.
“Canada is not the market maker on those commodities,” he stressed, acknowledging he doesn’t closely follow the chickpea market.
The day before the stocks report, lentil prices in Western Canada had remained unchanged over the last week. Only No. 1 Laird lentils saw any movement, with a dip of one cent at 54 to 56 cents/lb., according to Prairie Ag Hotwire.
It’s the same story for chickpeas, with all reported prices holding steady except for the nine-millimetre Kabulis, which lost a penny at 50-54 cents/lb.
Pea prices also remained pretty much unchanged — except for a sharp drop in feed prices in Alberta. Prairie Ag Hotwire there listed a 41 cents per bushel drop, at $11.25-$12.38/bu.
— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.
