February 17, 2012

 

Cold snap slightly harms EU wheat

 

 

The sudden cold this February, which has killed more than 100 people in Poland alone, has only slightly damaged Europe's wheat plantings, Strategie Grains said, cutting its yield forecast by less than 0.5%.

 

While the extreme cold, which brought temperatures below -30 degrees Celsius to some parts of Europe, is seen as having tested winter crops, many analysts are holding off damage estimates until plant growth resumes in the spring.

 

"The impact of the cold wave is still difficult to assess," Paris-based consultancy Agritel said on Thursday.

 

Agritel proposed durum crops in northern areas, and rapeseed, as potentially most vulnerable to the freeze, adding that soft wheat "might have been less impacted".

 

However, Strategie Grains opened efforts to put a figure on the damage to soft wheat by downgrading its forecast for the EU soft wheat harvest by just 600,000 tonnes.

 

"Our initial analysis is that, in most countries, the freezing conditions will not lead to more significant winter crop losses than experienced in a normal year," the analysis group said.

 

Its revised estimate of a 132.7 million tonnes still represents a rise of 3.3 million tonnes, on-year.

 

And what wheat fields were damaged would likely be reseeded with spring crops, Strategie Grains said, lifting its estimate for corn production by 300,000 tonnes to 62.6 million tonnes.

 

The forecast for barley output was edged 100,000 tonnes higher to 54.6 million tonnes, reflecting higher hopes for spring-sown crops in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

 

With an allowance of about 100,000 tonnes made for damage to durum, mainly in France, the figures fed through into a downgrade of 400,000 tonnes to the overall grains harvest, leaving it at 289.4 million tonnes.

 

The estimates contrasts with a more downbeat outlook issued last week by the European Commission, which warned that the mild winter running up to the freeze prevented winter cereals partially from hardening.

 

"They were vulnerable to frost kill damage in western Europe but also in western Poland, Czech Republic and around the Black Sea. Frost kill due to the cold spell is very likely to occur in eastern France, the Benelux countries, Germany, Poland and Czech Republic as well as in Ukraine."

 

The freeze has since loosened its grip, with temperatures in much of western Europe now comfortably above zero.

 

Nonetheless, in Ukraine, "boats are having trouble leaving harbours given the cold conditions", Agritel said. "Such conditions might continue until the end of the month, with temperatures still as low as -13 degrees Celsius in Kiev and -5 degrees Celsius in Odessa this morning."