In addition to continued coverage of bumper harvests and low prices in grain markets, the October edition of the FAO Monthly News Report on Grains included the increasing impacts of adverse weather on current harvests and 2016 forecasts.
The FAO Monthly News Report on Grains provides a collection of news articles on issues or factors considered critical in shaping the regional/global grains economy, as well as links to reports, statistics, and upcoming events.
Ag Professional reported that the EU’s crop-monitoring service increased the wheat and corn yield forecasts for 2015 but expressed concern for 2016 winter crops due to dry weather (or, in southeastern Europe, excessively wet weather) during the planting season. Bloomberg echoed concerns highlighted in last month’s MNR regarding the impact of dry conditions during the planting season on Russia and Ukraine’s winter crops, along with the same hopefulness that a mild winter and good spring rains could ameliorate the situation in a manner similar to 2014/2015.
El Nino weather patterns are having a negative impact on wheat yields in Australia and Ethiopia . In Australia, one of the world’s biggest wheat exporters, El Nino-related dryness and above-normal temperatures led to a sharp drop of one million tons in the 2015 wheat forecast from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES). This contrasts with the USDA’s move to raise its 2015 wheat forecast for Australia by one million tons, but ABARES’s chief commodity analyst told The Western Producer that information from the country’s bureau of meteorology and grain industry operators points to a shift in conditions.
Meanwhile, poor wheat harvests in Ethiopia due El Nino-related low rainfall have prompted an import tender of one million tons of wheat by the Public Procurement and Property Disposal Service (PPPDS). The UN announced that 8.2 million people (8.6 percent of the country’s population) were in need of food assistance by September, an increase of over 3.5 million people over the previous month’s estimates. Reuters reports skepticism among traders that Ethiopia has the logistical capacity to handle a single import of such volume, as well as concern that a separate import tender for fertilizer could strain unloading capacity at the port in Djibouti where Ethiopian imports are usually received.
The State Trading Corporation of Iran has announced plans to export 400,000 tons of durum wheat, typically used to make pasta. This marks the first time in history that Iran will export wheat, reports Black Sea Grain ; the country is the second-largest consumer of wheat in the Middle East.
The latest MNR on Grains also covered policy developments in India (increased wheat import duties) and China (resumption of corn-based ethanol production) and included links to the FAO Food Outlook and The State of Food and Agriculture , the World Bank’s quarterly Commodity Markets Outlook , and the IMF’s latest issue of the Fiscal Monitor . For more information, check out the full Monthly News Report on Grains Issue 117 - October 2015 .
BY: Rachel Kohn, IFPRI