Old-Crop Dry Pea Ending Stocks Forecast Up from May

Lower than expected exports are forecast to push Canadian old-crop dry pea ending stocks to the highest in three years.

Updated monthly supply-demand estimates released by Agriculture Canada late Friday pegged dry pea ending stocks for the current marketing year at 450,000 tonnes - way up from the government’s May estimate of 250,000 and 93% above the previous year’s 233,000. If accurate, ending stocks would be the largest since swelling to 648,000 tonnes in 2017-18.

All of this month’s increase in the ending stocks estimate is due to a lower export forecast, which drops 200,000 tonnes from May to 3.7 million, still roughly on par with 2019-20 exports. In its accompanying commentary, Ag Canada noted this year’s record imports from China and strong demand from Bangladesh but said Canadian exports to the US in the August to April period were below the year-earlier level due to that country’s own large pea crop.

Regardless of the heavier ending stocks, Ag Canada left its 2020-21 dry pea price forecast unchanged from May at $340/tonne, although it did acknowledge Yellow and Green pea farmgate prices fell $5/tonne in May, “despite expectations for a smaller Canadian dry pea supply in 2021-22.”

With a larger carryin from the old-crop marketing year, Ag Canada also raised its 2021-22 dry pea ending stocks estimate, bumping it up to 300,000 tonnes in June from 200,000 in May. Half of the larger old-crop carryin was offset by a 100,000-tonne increase in the new-crop export forecast to 3.4 million.

In other pulse and special crop supply-demand changes this month, Ag Canada trimmed its 2020-21 chickpea ending stocks forecast to 285,000 tonnes from 305,000 in May due to a 20,000-tonne increase in the export forecast to 135,000. However, even with this month’s reduction, chickpea ending stocks are still forecast above the previous year’s 250,000.

For 2021-22, chickpea ending stocks are now estimated by Ag Canada at 255,000 tonnes, a drop of 30,000 from May.

The old-crop chickpea average price forecast was increased to $645/tonne this month from $620 in May, while the new-crop outlook was held steady at $660.