November 18, 2011
Strategie Grains sees EU corn crop up by 16%
Strategie Grains, a French analyst, raised on Thursday (Nov 17) EU's 2011 corn crop estimate by one million tonnes to 64.4 million tonnes, 16% higher over the previous year.
Some 90% of the EU corn crop had been harvested by November 11, showing a record average yield of 7.25 tonnes per hectare, 0.13 tonnes per hectare above the previous record scored in 2008, the analyst said.
"Yield achieved record levels in a majority of countries," the analyst said in its monthly report.
Compared with last month, the main changes concerned France, the EU's top corn producer, for which the analyst raised its harvest estimate by 500,000 tonnes at 15.8 million tonnes, and Romania with a rise of 200,000 tonnes at 10.1 million tonnes.
The EU soft wheat crop was raised by 400,000 tonnes from last month at 129.5 million tonnes due to higher estimates for Spain (+ 200,000 tonnes from last month at 5.9 million tonnes) and France (+ 200,000 tonnes at 33.9 million tonnes).
Strategie Grains slightly lowered its estimate for the EU 2011 barley output at 52.4 million tonnes, down 200,000 tonnes on last month, while the durum output was unchanged 8.4 million tonnes.
