High wheat yields and quality worries worldwide
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Friday, 30 July, 1999
Although high yields are being reported there is some concern over quality. |
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Despite numerous changes to crop estimates for different countries, world production is forecast one million tonnes higher than last month at 568m tonnes, noted the International Grains Council (IGC).
Increases in the EC, Kazakhstan, Canada, the USA and China counteracted declines for Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine.
A net decline of 17m tonnes is expected compared to last years output of 585m tonnes on the back of reductions in the EC, the USA, Iran, Syria and Morocco.
The forecast for world trade remains unchanged at 99m tonnes. Better trade this year compared with last can be attributed to higher import needs in Near East Asia, where drought curtailed production in several countries.
The IGC has forecast world consumption one million tonnes lower than last month at 583m tonnes, and four million below the revised total for 1998/99.
In its monthly report the IGC said it expects feed use to be the lowest for eighteen years at only 87m tonnes.
“The depressed condition in the livestock industry in Russia accounts for most of the decline.”
Feed use in Russia is set at a mere nine million tonnes compared with about 30 million in the early 1990s.
However, food use is likely to rise by six million at 437m tonnes.
World stocks are projected at 116m tonnes of which 53m (46%) will be held by the five major exporting countries.
Stocks in the US are expected to decline only slightly on last season. And the situation is thought to be similar in the EC for both carryover and intervention stocks.