EU grain crop forecast lowered over ongoing dryness

11-Jun-2018 - Last updated on 11-Jun-2018 at 12:50 GMT

Coceral, in its second forecast for the EU 2018 total grain crop, said it has revised downwards the previous figure of 302.5 million tons to 299.1 million tons.

This would nearly match last year’s crop, which came in 299.2 million tons of grains, said the association.

Coceral represents the trade in cereals, rice, feedstuffs, oilseeds, olive oil, oils and fats and agrosupply.

It predicts the EU wheat crop will be lower, going from 140.5 million tons to 138.8 million tons, a clear decrease on the 141.6 million tons harvested in 2017.

Dryness concerns

Reductions have been made for production in Germany, Scandinavia, all the Baltic countries as well as Romania due to the ongoing dryness, said the association.

Crops in France and Spain, however, have been revised upwards, said Coceral.

Although saying it was still early in the season, the EU trade group revised downwards the EU’s corn crop production from the earlier forecast of 61.7 million tons to 60.3 million tons referencing a bad start in several countries, notably in Romania. In 2017, EU corn production came in at 59.9 million tons.

Coceral said it also expects EU rapeseed production to go lower, from 22 million tons to just 21.1 million tons. Last year, the EU recorded rapeseed output of 22 million tons.

Barley has bucked the trend though with the production forecast for that grain positive. EU barley production is predicted to be slightly higher from the earlier forecast, up from 60.3 to 60.8 million tons - a higher crop is now forecast for France and Spain. The EU 2017 barley crop was 58.1 million tons.

The association did caution though that the weather over the coming months will play a crucial role in crop development and final yields. “Deviations from the aforementioned forecasts are not unlikely therefore.”