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| Poor weather dents further EU grain estimates |
| EU, 28.08.2010 |
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| Strategie Grains has, for a fifth successive month, cut its hopes for the European Union grain crop, flagging weather setbacks which have put the barley crop on course for its worst showing in at least a decade.
The downgrade came shortly before the US Department of Agriculture sliced its estimate for the EU wheat harvest, citing the region's polarised weather extremes this year.
Strategie Grains slashed by 3.5m tonnes to 277.5m tonnes its estimate for EU grain output in 2010-11, putting the region on course for 5.3% slump in production year on year.
Wheat accounted for the bulk of the downgrade, with harvest hopes reduced by 1.3m tonnes to 128.2m tonnes.
Estimates for French and Spanish crops were raised, thanks to thoughts that sowings had been more extensive than had been thought, with yield figures lifted for Denmark and the Baltic countries.
But the upgrades were more than offset by a 1.4m-tonne cut to Strategie Grains' estimates for Bulgaria Hungary and Romania, blamed on heavy rain. Dry weather was blamed for an overall 440,000-tonne downgrade to Finnish, Swedish and Polish crops.
Barley slump
The analysis group also ditched hopes of a rise in EU corn production, warning that hot and dry weather had cost France, Germany and Italy 1.3m tonnes in output.
And the estimate for barley production was slashed by 1.1m tonnes to 53.0m tonnes, a figure which, if realised, would be the lowest since the EU was expanded to 27 countries a decade ago.
Besides lower sowings, a reflection of especially weak barley prices until the spring and of the removal of EU intervention support, the crop had been hurt by eastern Europe's heavy rains, Strategie Grains said.
The revisions came as the Paris-based group lifted its forecast for both EU and US wheat exports to reflect trade switched from the former Soviet Union, where Russia has imposed a ban on grain shipments, and Ukraine is to consider restrictions.
'Excessive precipitation'
The USDA said that the 4.3m-tonne reduction, to 137.5m tonnes, in its estimate for EU production of wheat of all types reflected a crop that "suffered from a dry spring and early summer in the western countries, and from excessive precipitation in the eastern countries".
The harvest in France, the region's largest wheat producer, would fall by 800,000 tonnes to 37.5m tonnes despite an increase in plantings of 5.5%.
Second-ranked Germany would harvest 24.0m tonnes, a drop of 5% year on year, after "unfavourable dryness was followed by excessive precipitation".
"The impact of the dryness was exacerbated in areas with light soils, and continued to the estimated German yield reduction to 7.23 tonnes per hectare, compared with 7.81 tonnes per hectare reached in 2009-10."
However, south eastern Europe received "near record" amounts of rain during the wheat harvest period, "lowering yields and quality".
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