Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Italy set to see bigger corn crops

The hike in expected supply is stemming from the recovery in corn production. Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Italy are forecast to see much bigger crops in 2023, following a poor crop season last year due to severe drought and heat.

The French corn crop, however, is not expected to recover as much. Plantings in that country are anticipated to decrease due to the high input costs.

The estimate is for corn output of 62.3m tons, overall. That would be a considerable improvement on the 52.5m tons harvested in 2022.

Wheat expanding ​

Wheat production is expected to reach 144.5 m tons, up from 143.3 in the last Coceral forecast and an improvement on last season’s 142.3m tons.

Similar to corn, Spain, Italy, Hungary, and the Balkan countries are expected to have bigger wheat harvests this year.

Barley production ​

Barley production for the EU and UK this year is forecast at 59.6m tons, slightly up from last year’s 58.8m tons.

The rapeseed crop for the region is estimated at 21.1m tons, which would equal last year’s production. Plantings are up slightly, year on year, but yields are expected to drop slightly.

Price developments 

Export data has caused a stir this week.

US soybean export sale data, at 152Kt, was down by 77% week on week and below market expectations. Pressure was also added from the tailwind of Brazil’s huge harvest, which has depressed prices in the port of Paranagua to 14-month lows in dollar terms, with a 5% plunge observed in Chicago May-23 soyoil futures as well, reported CRM Agri.

Corn futures eventually sagged too, having managed decent gains earlier on strong US export news. "Not only were US export sales for last week, at 3.1Mt, the largest in two years but China, responsible for 2.2Mt of the trade, was revealed to have made a further purchase of US supplies, of 123Kt."