October 15, 2007

EU corn, sorghum import certificates up sharply on-year

The European Union has issued a significantly higher amount of import certificates for corn and sorghum this year to make up for a shortage of domestic feed grains, official data showed Friday (October 12).

As of week 15 in the 2007/08 marketing campaign 3.91 million tonnes of corn import certificates had been issued, up from 1.16 million over the same period last season and 562,000 tonnes at the same date in 2005/06.

EU sorghum import certificates totalled 1.14 million tonnes 15 weeks into the marketing year, up sharply from 178,000 tonnes for the same period in 2006-07.

Drought in the eastern EU nations and overly wet conditions in the western EU this summer meant farmers harvested even less grain than in 2006-07 which saw a reduced crop. Due to the poor back-to-back harvest, the previously large EU intervention grain stores have been nearly used up.

The main crop in the EU is wheat. Both European feed and milling wheat futures traded on Liffe soared to all-time highs in September due to tight domestic and global wheat supplies. This has prompted feed compounders to search out alternative feed grains.

The EU's strict policy on the imports of genetically modified organisms has resulted in the 27-nation bloc sourcing corn from Brazil and sorghum from the US.