April 5, 2010

Severe drought affects Venezuela's grain production

Agricultural production in Venezuela has been seriously affected by scant rainfall in 2009 and the first quarter of 2010, registering the most severe drought of the past 37 years, according to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).

FAS said the drought has significantly affected grain production, especially in the Central states and in the plains (Llanos) where corn, sorghum and rice crops are harvested. In addition, increasing production costs, regulated farm gate prices and retail prices of the finished products have hurt production.

Official agricultural figures from 2008 have not been published yet, according to FAS. Traditionally, there is a delay of about two years or more, which makes it very difficult for producers to estimate the behaviour of agriculture in Venezuela. However, private sources report a dramatic decrease of domestic grain production in 2009. A drop of about 700,000 tonnes of corn is estimated, according to FAS.

Venezuela is heavily dependent on wheat imports for domestic flour milling. FAS said the agency expects wheat trade to continue based on domestic food demand.

In general, 2009 was particularly bad for agriculture in Venezuela, according to FAS. The prolonged drought affected the two planting cycles (winter and summer). Despite the poor production results in 2009, the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands re-launched the so called Integrated Plan for Agricultural Development (PIDA) which estimates growth in production of about 126% growth in corn. However farmers and the agricultural industry sector said that these goals will be hard to achieve, according to the FAS.