Manitoba soybean prices held steady at a high level as deliveries from a late harvest picked up sharply and brought elevator stocks close to the usual tonnage.
- Manitoba's soybean price barely moved in the week and is well above last year.
- Harvest is behind, but farm deliveries jumped this week and elevator stocks caught up to about the usual tonnage.
- A slow finish to the harvest would hold deliveries back again.
Manitoba's soybean price was steady this week. Manitoba's quote of October 9 put soybeans at C$592.31 a tonne, up C$1.10 from the week before. That is about 36 per cent above last year at this time and higher than in four of the past five years. Chicago November soybean futures, which are not shown on the page, ended the week a little higher, despite USDA raising its US yield estimate on 9 October.Charts: Exhibit 8
The harvest is late, but it has started to reach the elevators. Manitoba reported soybeans 61 per cent harvested on October 14, against a five-year average of about 81 per cent, and Saskatchewan reported 53 per cent on October 12, below any of the past five years. Even so, in the week ended October 11 farm deliveries to country elevators jumped to 173,900 tonnes, about three-quarters above the five-year average for the week. Country elevator stocks more than doubled in the week, to close to the average for the date, and almost all of them are in Manitoba. So the elevators have caught up to a normal level even though the field harvest is still behind.Charts: Exhibit 10, Exhibit 5, Exhibit 7
Exports have been slow to start. Terminal exports were 58,900 tonnes in the week ended October 11, below the five-year average for the week, and the crop-year total of 137,500 tonnes is below the five-year average and well behind last year. Port stocks on October 11 were near average.Charts: Exhibit 2, Exhibit 1, Exhibit 5
The official outlook in September trimmed Canada's soybean export forecast to 5.4 million tonnes and raised expected ending stocks, while lifting its forecast of the average price by C$20 to C$575 a tonne. With much of the Manitoba crop still in the field in mid-October, the pace of the remaining harvest will decide how much more reaches elevators. So far the elevator figures say more about harvest timing than about demand.Charts: Exhibit 14, Exhibit 10
Soybeans covers Grain Commission flows, AAFC forecasts, harvest progress and the Manitoba cash price (Manitoba is the only Prairie province that publishes one). AAFC's export forecast covers all of Canada; most soybeans ship from Eastern Canada, so Grain Commission terminal figures cover only part of them.