October 29, 2009

Rabobank Australia has held unchanged its monthly forecast for Australian wheat production this crop year at 22.8 million tonnes, if achieved up 6.5 percent on actual output of 21.4 million tonnes in the crop year ended March 31, 2009.

With the harvest now underway in northern growing areas in New South Wales and Queensland, production results remain mixed given this region bore the brunt of dry weather in early spring, the bank reported in a monthly commodity review.

In other growing areas, the crop looks average to above average with "potentially record crops in both South Australia and Western Australia," it said.

Rabobank's estimate is 100,000 tonnes above a projection by the government's chief commodities forecaster, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.