World wheat stocks 'to hit record' in 2012-13
2012-01-18 15:45:01
World wheat stocks are to edge higher still to a record next season despite a marginally lower harvest, Canadian officials said, while saying their domestic harvest would buck the downward production trend.
Canada's farm ministry, AAFC, forecast that carry-out stocks of wheat in 2012-13 would "rise slightly to 211m tonnes".
While an increase of just some 1m tonnes year on year, this looks likely enough to break the record 210.7m tonnes set in 1999-2000, on US Department of Agriculture estimates.
The forecast factors in a small decrease, to 690m tonnes, in the world harvest and an unquantified rise in consumption.
And it would mean lower wheat values, AAFC said, forecasting that the average wheat price Canadian farmers receive could fall by more than 10% in 2012-13 for both conventional varieties and the durum type used in making pasta.
Canola records
The ministry gave no reason for its expectation of lower world wheat production in 2012-13, although the Ukraine crop has got off to a notably poor start, and some observers foresee Australian output falling back after two exceptional seasons, thanks to rains bought by the La Nina weather pattern.
Canada's own wheat crop, including durum, will rise by more than 1.2m tonnes to 26.5m tonnes, assuming that the country does not, for a third successive spring, suffer wet conditions which have forced farmers to leave millions of acres unsown.
"For 2012-13, the areas seeded to all crops are forecast to rise largely due the expected decline in area in summerfallow, assuming that a major portion of the area which was too wet to seed in western Canada in 2011 will be seeded," the ministry said.
For canola, extra area will take plantings to a record 8.0m hectares, more than sown with non-durum wheat, and sufficient to take the harvest to an all-time high of 15.0m tonnes.
The rapeseed variant is supported in farmers' affections "by historically strong prices and expected attractive yields," AAFC said, forecasting that prices will remain "well above" their five-year average, if lower than in 2011-12.