Canola coming into GrainCorp’s Greenethorpe site NSW in the 2023-24 harvest. Photo: Shayne O’Brien

AUSTRALIA exported 6.13 million tonnes (Mt) of canola in the year to September 30, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Japan on 1.33Mt was the largest market, followed by Germany on 885,864t and the United Arab Emirates on 768,061t.

In the next three places came Belgium on 676,194t, France on 665,860t, and Pakistan on 661,130t.

Australia’s 2023-24 canola exports are little changed from the 6.02Mt shipped in 2022-23, and once again highlight the importance of European Union destinations in the first two quarters of the Australian shipping year.

As outlined in Peter McMeekin’s article published Tuesday, the European Union collectively made up the biggest market for Australian canola in 2023-24.

Australia’s 2024-25 canola harvest is around one third through, with the Western Australia making good progress, and key eastern Australian areas of southern and central New South Wales, and the Wimmera in Victoria, starting to advance at pace.

Domestic crushers have been bidding aggressively to cover the 1Mt or so in total they need for their plants, and rising global values and buoyant near-term export demand have made canola a preferred cash crop for growers selling straight off the header.

“Global canola values have gained on the back of further cuts to the EU crop and disappointing Canadian harvest results,” Lachstock Consulting said in its canola supply-and-demand report released October 16.

“Less-than-ideal planting conditions for soybeans in South America and the volatile situation in the Middle East is providing underlying support to the whole oilseed complex,” it stated.

Table 1: Australia’s canola exports for the year to 30 September 2024. Source: ABS