February 18, 2008

Mexico '08 spring summer corn crop seen up 3.2 percent

Mexico's 2008 spring-summer corn harvest is forecast to rise 3.2 percent to 17,523,617 tonnes, the Agriculture Ministry's statistical agency SIAP said in a new report Thursday (February 17).

This first forecast for the 2008 spring-summer crop is based on sowing estimates, and projects an increase from the 2007 harvest of 16,974,775 tonnes, SIAP said on the report, of which a copy was obtained by Dow Jones Newswires.

The Mexican corn crop is made up almost exclusively of white corn, but does include smaller unspecified volumes of yellow corn.

Mexico's 2008 wheat crop, meanwhile, was forecast to rise 8.7 percent to 344,991 tonnes, compared with wheat output in the spring-summer wheat crop in 2007 of 317,321 tonnes, SIAP said in the report.

The spring-summer sorghum crop, however, was expected to come in slightly lower at 3,265,465 tonnes, down 0.5 percent from Mexico's 2007 sorghum harvest of 3,282,051 tonnes, SIAP said.

The 2008 agricultural year includes the 2007-08 fall-winter crop, which is harvested from May to July, and the 2008 spring-summer crop that is normally harvested between August and November.