August 3, 2007 

 

Hungarian farm ministry sees corn crop down 50 percent due at 4.54 million tonnes

 

 

Hungary's corn crop is to total about 4.54 million tonnes this year, half of last year's crop, due to the unusually dry summer, the Farm Ministry said Thursday (August 2).

 

Hungary hasn't seen a sizable rainfall in two months and the corn crop could be even less than that if the weather continues to be dry in August, Fulop Benedek, state secretary at the ministry said at a press conference.

 

The poor corn crop puts Hungarian animal breeders in a difficult situation because of the expected shortage of and rising prices for feed.

 

Corn imports are a last resort for Hungary, which still has 1.2 million tonnes of its corn left over from last year's bumper harvest in European Union intervention storage, Minister Jozsef Graf said.

 

Hungary has been seeking EU support for access to that EU intervention stocks for domestic breeders as the EU has allowed that for Spain, Graf said. Hungary is ready to share such access with Romania and Bulgaria, which have also suffered from a poor harvest.

 

"We'll need an additional 500,000 to 600,000 tonnes of corn and we are not shying away from purchases abroad. I already talked to our ambassador to the US to see if there are possibilities (for imports from) overseas," Graf said.

 

Hungary will also examine the possibilities of corn imports from Brazil or other Latin American countries, he added.

 

Hungary will also seek corn import possibilities from Poland, which had seen a large crop, Graf added.

 

A 4-million-tonne corn crop is an average harvest for Hungary but comes after three successive years of a bumper harvest of between 8 million and 9 million tonnes.

 

Feed corn prices for August delivery are 47,700 forints (US$183.61) a ton at present, up sharply from HUF40,500 in early July and HUF33,400 in June for the same date of delivery.

 

Hungary's wheat crop totalled 4 million tonnes this year, the ministry said based on final harvest data, confirming the figure published by Dow Jones Newswires July 25.