USDA estimates global canola crop 2023/24 slightly lower than last year After the strong increase in production in 2022/23 of +17%, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) expects a rapeseed harvest for the coming year 2023/24 to be down by -1% in some areas. However, the development is very different in the individual growing areas. The USDA estimates an increase of +14 and 13% respectively in the two largest producer countries, the EU and Canada, with around 45%. The main reason for the EU result is the higher acreage, while in Canada increasing yields per hectare also ensure greater production. After the disaster in 2021/22, Canada's canola exports are increasing again to 8.9 million t or 50% of world trade. The EU remains the world's largest importer , albeit with a reduced 5.1 million t. Despite increasing domestic production, China remains an import area with around 3 million tons. However, the rising Indian harvest makes rapeseed imports superfluous.After 2 record years as a result of the favorable La Niña weather, Australia is experiencing a slump from last year's 8.3 million t to this year's 5.5 million t. The change to the general El Niño weather situation prompted farmers in advance to drastically reduce the area under cultivation. In addition, significantly weaker area yields are expected due to the expected lack of precipitation. Around 75% of the Australian harvest is regularly exported. In the many small other rapeseed growing areas, including the Ukraine, a reduction of around 9% compared to the previous year is expected. Crucial to rapeseed pricing is competition between the two leaders in the vegetable oil market sector, namely palm oil and soybean oil . In addition, due to the use of rapeseed oil for biofuels, there is also the dependence on the price of crude oil.
