July 9, 2012

Ukraine's 2012-13 grain export forecast down on harvest fall

Due to a possible fall in harvest, Ukraine's grain exports forecast for the July 2012-June 2013 season has been revised downward on Friday by ProAgro to 20.9 million tonnes from the previous outlook of about 23 million tonnes.

The agriculture consultancy said in a report it expected that the exports of wheat would total 4.6 million tonnes, barley 1.8 million tonnes and corn 14 million tonnes.

Earlier this week, ProAgro cut its grain crop forecast by 10% to 43.03 million tonnes because of hot weather. Its wheat harvest forecast was reduced to 12.7 million tonnes from 13.9 million, barley was cut from six million tonnes from 7.3 million tonnes and corn to 22.1 million tonnes from 23.6 million tonnes.

Ukraine's state weather forecasting centre this week also lowered its outlook for the 2012 grain harvest to 42 million tonnes from a previous estimate of 44 million because of a smaller than expected corn crop.

Hot, dry weather in southern and eastern regions has reduced the corn yield, forecasters said.

The weather centre expects the corn harvest to be between 20 million-21 million tonnes, against a previous outlook of 22 million tonnes, while the government has forecast a crop of at least 25 million tonnes this year.

The government forecast the harvest at about 47 million tonnes this year against 56.7 million tonnes in 2011.