CANOLA prices has jumped on the back of news out of Canada that there is a smaller than expected plant.
Statistics Canada, the Canadian national crop forecaster, came out this week with an estimated canola plant of 8.3 million hectares, down on the thoughts of private forecasters who had it pegged at around 8.5m ha.
In the wake of the news there was a steady rally in canola values, both on the flagship Winnipeg futures exchange and in Australian new crop cash bids.
Most Australian new crop port price canola bids are now in the range of $580-590 a tonne.
This is historically a decile 10 price, in the highest 10 per cent of prices on record.
Commonwealth Bank commodity analyst Tobin Gorey said canola continued to trade at around $35 a tonne premium to soybeans on international futures exchanges.
Canada is the world's largest canola producers but plantings have dropped this year in the wake of a trade war with China, with the Asian giant banning imports of Canadian canola last year.
Ostensibly the ban was due to the presence of pests, including the damaging fungal disease blackleg, in shipments of Canadian canola, however the Canadian press cited the arrest of a senior executive of Chinese company Huawei in Vancouver as part of the motivation in China's decision.
Mr Gorey said Canada planted 9.2m ha of canola in 2018 before the concerns with China emerged.
Australia had a similar spell on the sidelines in terms of the Chinese market from 2009 to 2013 due to problems with blackleg levels.
The Canadian news was not the only boost for canola values.
Analysts out of Europe are reporting cuts to yield potential, while planted crop is also down, due to a lack of suitable insecticide controls with the banning of certain crop chemicals.