Farming and your freedom: From Canada to China—with (linseed) love?

by Peter Graham, Columnist

Let’s talk about linseed. An article on Ag Web notes that China may become the leading importer of linseed and linseed oil in 2014-15. Canada, one of the world’s major supplier of linseed, plans to seek markets for “huge export supplies of the oilseed,” wrote Oil World last week.
Oil World said, according to Ag Web, that linseed or flaxseed imports by China could climb to 350,000 metric tons in the year through July 2015, up from 250,000 metric tons in 2013-14, and just 153,000 metric tons in 2012-13. Canada is the world’s biggest grower of linseed, which is edible and is crushed to make vegetable oil and oil seed, Oil World said.
Oil World, reported Ag Web, said that China is expected to be the key growth market for prospective huge Canadian export supplies. The rise in imports may make China the world’s largest crusher of linseed for the first time. It may process some 600,000 tons in 2014-15, Ag Web reported. According to Oil World, Chinese demand will hinge on prices being “sufficiently attractive.”
The researcher said a jump in Chinese purchasing and crushing may result in declining import demand for flaxseed oil. Canadian flaxseed crops are forecast, Ag Web reported. Canada’s flaxseed crop is forecast to rise to 950,000 tons this year, up from 712,000 tons in 2013. The nation’s exports will climb, the researcher believed, to 730,000 tons, up from 555,000 tons.
Oil World figured that with rising domestic production of oils in Canada and flagging import demand from the United States, Canadian producers and exporters of flaxseed may benefit from increased business with the Chinese giant.
In Saskatchewan, Canada’s main flaxseed growing province, 56 percent of the intended planting area has been sown as of June 2 compared with 54 percent a year earlier, with 89 percent of the crop being rated as good or excellent. Just a year ago, the figure was 68 percent, Oil World noted. That helps put the Canadian province in the catbird seat to do great business with China in the coming years.
Just another way in which the fast-paced world of agriculture constantly changes, expands and gets more efficient.
***
Many farms in the upper Midwest were pummeled by horrific weather recently, making bumper crops problematic. We wish them all well in the difficult weeks and months ahead.
I’ll see ya!