Australia Cuts Wheat-Output Estimate on Dry Weather in West
Australia, the world’s second- biggest wheat exporter, cut its harvest forecast as dry weather in the country’s west curbs production, deepening global supply concerns as droughts bake fields from the U.S. to Russia.
Output may reach 22.5 million metric tons in 2012-2013, 6.6 percent below an estimate in June, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, or Abares, said today. The crop was a record 29.5 million tons in 2011-2012. The agency raised its export estimate to 21.5 million tons in the year from Oct. 1, from 20.5 million tons forecast in June and a revised record 24.5 million tons a year earlier, it said.
Wheat has climbed 36 percent this year as the worst U.S. drought since 1956 and dry weather in Russia shrinks supplies. World food prices were little changed last month after the biggest jump since 2009 in July as grain and oilseed prices rose, the Food & Agriculture Organization said Sept. 6. World reserves before next year’s Northern Hemisphere harvest may drop 10 percent to the lowest since 2009, U.S. government data show
“Importers around the world are looking to Australia to provide a significant quantity of wheat over the next 12 months and that’s a direct consequence of drought in Russia and the U.S.,” said Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. “Although Abares is projecting quite a significant year-on-year decline in wheat production, total supplies are sufficient to allow a very strong export program.”
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