Drought lifts fears of smallest Australian wheat crop in decade
Staff Writer |
Conditions for Australian crops have deteriorated so much that there is growing talk that the wheat harvest may fall below 20m tonnes – a plunge of more than 40% from last year's record high.
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National Australia Bank earlier this week issued a forecast for a 23.3m-tonnes Australian wheat harvest in 2017-18, undercutting estimates from the likes of the International Grains Council of a 24.8m-tonne crop, and the US Department of Agriculture's 25.0m-tonne figure.
NAB cautioned over the lack of rain for the crop, and said that "if it stays dry, we expect further downside risks to this outlook".
However, the extent of the dryness means that even the NAB forecast may be overstated, many commentators believe, with concerns over canola production too.
At the Australian office of grain merchant Nidera, origination manager Peter McMeekin said that while "many still have Australian wheat production up around long-term average levels of 24m-25m tonnes, the reality is the Australian wheat crop is suffering big time.
"Last year's record production," when wheat output topped 35m tonnes, "is now a distant memory, as the trade here in Australia come to terms with the possibility of a sub 20m-tonne wheat production year, for the first time since 2007".
In Western Australia, grower Aaron Edmonds told Agrimoney.com that "at the moment, any talk of a crop above 20m tonnes is head-in-the-sand stuff.
Western Australia, the country's top grain-growing state, "had a terrible start to the season", he adding that canola crops had suffered particularly badly.
"There was a large swing to canola [in sowings] and that has taken the dry start the hardest. Some of the worst canola crops I have ever seen."
The Grain Industry Association of Western Australia on Friday, in a preliminary estimate for the total Western Australia harvest, of crops including oats and lupins as well as canola and wheat, pegged it "within a range of 10m-12m tonnes", compared with 18.16m tonnes last year. ■