July 3, 2007

Australian wheat crop growth doubles official forecast
 

An increase in Australian wheat plantings this year is double the amount officially forecast, according to a survey of farmers by consultancies Profarmer and Callum Downs Commodity News published Tuesday (Jul 3) in the Australian Financial Review newspaper.

The survey found farmers planted 22 percent more wheat this crop year ending Mar 31, 2008, than in the previous crop year, compared with an official forecast of an 11 percent increase, the report said.

This suggests total wheat plantings this crop year are about 13.6 million hectares, rather than the 12.4 million hectares in the forecast issued in mid-June by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics, or Abare.

Using Abare's yield estimate for this crop year of 1.81 tonnes/hectare, the private survey points to total production of about 24.6 million tonnes compared with Abare's forecast of 22.5 million tonnes, increasing export availability.