North American Bean Supplies Down 40%

VANCOUVER - Oct 14/11 - SNS -- Available supplies of dry edible beans are down sharply in North America, with the latest USDA crop production estimates helping add some clarity to the depth of the decline in this year's harvests in Canada and the United States.

The Canadian situation remains unclear, with Statistics Canada so far unwilling to develop seeded area and production estimates for Manitoba because of the inability of farmers in the province to finish seeding this year's crops.

As it stands, it seems that Canadian production may be down by half from last year, while output in the United States is now expected to 38% lower as a massive drop in seeded area more than offsets a modest improvement in forecast yields.

The net result is the combined harvest in Canada and the United States may be down 40% at just over one million metric tons (MT). This the smallest crop since farmers in the two countries harvested 927,161 MT of edible beans in 1988. It is only the fourth time since 1988 than production has been below 1.1 million MT.

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