Canada's Carry-over Disappointing

VANCOUVER - Sep 7/12 - SNS -- Canada's ending stock estimates for the 2011-12 marketing year were more disappointing than surprising.

As expected, total inventories of pulses and other specialty crops were down from year earlier levels. The marketing year ended with a combined total of 1.187 million metric tons (MT) on hand, compared to 1.491 million last year and 1.149 million the previous year.

As was the case last year, lentils account for the majority of the sector's ending stocks. More significantly, lentil ending stocks rose over year earlier levels, making it one of only two crops to show an increase in season ending stock levels. The other was oats, where ending stocks rose 6.2% to 817,000 MT, while lentil inventories were 5.1% higher at 788,000 MT.

Similar to last year, the July 31 stocks in all positions report also contained revisions to stocks from prior years for some crops, along with changes to last year's field pea and canaryseed production estimates.

It is important to note that Statistics Canada based its numbers on a survey of 15,000 farmers between July 25 and August 1. Farmers were asked to report the amounts of grain, oilseeds and special crops in on-farm storage. Data on commercial stocks of western major crops originate from the Canadian Grain Commission.