Glacier Farm Media — Statistics Canada will release its first survey-based production estimates for the 2025/26 crop year on Dec. 4, with general expectations for upward revisions to most major crops from the model-based estimates in September. However, as StatCan has shown a tendency to underestimate production in its December reports, many analysts expect actual production may be revised upward in subsequent reports.
Why it matters — StatCan’s production estimates guide market prices higher or lower.
The analysts and traders said they have heard from farmers who said crop yields were larger than expected for 2025/26. Now they are expecting StatCan to raise its projections for a variety of crops, especially canola and wheat.
Read Also
Larkin to step down as Grain Growers of Canada Executive Director
Kyle Larkin will step down as executive director of Grain Growers of Canada (GGC) at the end of December.
“There’s a pretty strong tendency for StatCan to continue to make upward revisions to their production estimates after their December numbers,” said analyst Jon Driedger of Leftfield Commodities.
Tony Tryhuk, trader with RBC Dominion Securities, agreed.
“StatCan has been known to revise their production estimates … up to two years after their publication,” Tryhuk said.
Big revision for canola earlier this year
For example, StatCan last year initially placed 2024/25 canola production at 19.50 million tonnes, then slashed it to 17.85 million tonnes in December. Then this summer, the agency boosted it up to 19.24 million tonnes.
The contention is the difference in data StatCan gets from its model-based reports in August and September that rely on heavily satellite imagery, versus the farmer surveys that dominate the December report.
“My experience with the survey-based estimates is they are under reported,” Tryhuk added.
Crops love cooler temperatures
For analyst Jerry Klassen of Resilient Capital, the main reason many in the trade are expecting bigger production numbers from StatCan is the cooler-than-normal temperatures the Prairies had in July.
“Some of these northern crops like barley, canola and oats, that do well in cool temperatures. We’re going to be very surprised by the yields. When you have a cool July, those crops can yield tremendously,” Klassen said.
He said this also applies to spring wheat, durum, peas, and lentils, but cautioned that the qualities of all of those crops may not be as good if July temperatures had been normal.
Estimates ahead of Thursday’s report
The analysts and traders the Western Producer Markets Desk spoke with believe this year’s canola harvest ranges from 20.08 million tonnes to as much as 22.10 million. Either way, that would be the third time StatCan has recorded a canola harvest of more than 20 million tonnes. The largest being the 2017 crop of 21.46 million tonnes, followed by 20.72 million in 2018.
Among the other crops, in millions of tonnes with StatCan’s September estimates in brackets:
• All wheat: 38 million-38.73 million (36.62 million)
• Spring wheat: 27.30 million-28 million (26.61 million)
• Durum: 7.20 million-7.50 million (6.53 million)
• Barley: 8.70 million-9.20 million (8.23 million)
• Oats: 3.40 million-3.80 million (3.37 million)
• Dry Peas: 3.80 million-4 million (3.56 million)
• Lentils: 3.15 million-3.50 million (2.97 million)
Reuters published the results of their survey which included averages of all wheat at 38.49 million tonnes, durum 7.15 million, oats 3.66 million, barley 8.90 million, canola 21.25 million, peas 3.97 million and lentils 3.26 million.
StatCan will release its report on Thursday at 7:30 a.m. CST.
