January 19, 2012
Despite a marginally lower crop, wheat output worldwide will go further higher to a record next season, Canadian officials said, while adding that their local harvest would buck the downward output trend.
Canada's farm ministry, AAFC, forecast that carry-out stocks of wheat in 2012-13 would "rise slightly to 211 million tonnes".
While an increase of just some 1m tonnes on-year, this looks likely enough to break the record 210.7 million tonnes set in 1999-2000, on USDA estimates.
The forecast factors in a small decrease, to 690 million 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.
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 1.2 million tonnes to 26.5 million 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 rapeseed, extra area will take plantings to a record eight million hectares, more than sown with non-durum wheat, and sufficient to take the harvest to an all-time high of 15 million 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.
