February 17, 2012

Strategie Grains revises down EU's 2011-12 grain output

The EU's 2011-12 grain harvest estimate has been downwardly revised by Strategie Grains Thursday (Feb 16) by 0.4 million tonnes, to 289.4 million tonnes.

Strategie Grains has also added that freezing conditions across the bloc won't lead to more significant winter crop losses than normal.

The influential analyst said the monthly decrease in 2011-12's grain output forecast mostly related to soft wheat, which it revised down by 0.6 million tonnes, to 132.7 million tonnes.

Strategie Grains expects Romania and the Czech Republic to both produce 0.2 million tonnes less soft wheat than it estimated in January, while Italy and Hungary are both seen cutting output by 0.1 million tonnes.

The analyst said these reductions were mostly due to changes to its planted area estimates, while there were also some small changes relating to the impact of recent freezing weather.

Europe was hit by a wave of cold weather at the end of January and through the first 10 days of February that contrasted drastically with the unusually mild conditions so far this winter.

Strategie Grains said the freezing conditions won't lead to more significant winter crop losses than experienced in a normal year for most countries. However, the analyst added that crop damage is likely to be most severe in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and some parts of Romania and Poland, where fields will probably be replanted with spring crops rather than the affected plants being left to grow at lower yields.