Dry weather hits Australia’s canola harvest

Australian canola harvest is estimated at 1.05 million metric tonnes of
canola, down from 1.23 million tonnes estimated last month, the Australian Oilseeds Federation in Sydney
said. Output last year was 512,000 tonnes.

Harvest expectations in
Australia are being scaled back as the nation’s worst drought on record cuts
yields of all grains including wheat and barley.

Forecast canola output
has been cut the past two months, limiting growers’ ability to benefit from
canola’s 36% price gain in the past year.

No rainfall since
August
“There has been little good news in New South Wales, with the last
reasonable rainfall occurring in the third week of August and then only in the
north east,” the federation said.

New South Wales may produce 40,000
tonnes of canola, 75% less than forecast last month. That estimate may be
further cut, the federation said.

Other states also
affected
Victoria State may harvest 348,000 tonnes of the oilseed, down
from the 430,000 t estimated last month.

The federation cut its forecast
for South Australia by 5% to 190,000 tonnes and left its estimate for Western
Australia unchanged at 475,000 tonnes.

The federation’s forecast compares
with the 1.1 million tonnes production estimate made by the government’s
commodity forecaster, which also said the nation may export 672,000 tonnes of
the oilseed according to its latest quarterly commodity report on Sept.
24.

Australia is the world’s third-largest canola exporter. Canada is the
world’s largest canola exporter, followed by Ukraine.