Only two significant wheat producing regions in the world had bad crops this year, Australia and the Middle East.
Australia recently enjoyed rain.
But the Middle East is still bone dry in many regions, according to a report from United States Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
“What this is, is kind of an early warning,” said Michael Shean, crop assessment analyst with the agency and author of the report.
His department won’t publish official production estimates for any of the countries in the Middle East until May, but with seeding wrapping up, the initial prognosis isn’t promising.
Read Also
China’s grain imports have slumped big-time
China purchased just over 20 million tonnes of wheat, corn, barley and sorghum last year, that is well below the 60 million tonnes purchased in 2021-22.
“At this early stage in the 2009-10 growing season, wheat yield potential is extremely questionable in many regions of the Middle East’s major wheat producing countries,” wrote Shean in the Dec. 15 report.
Fall precipitation has improved over last year in Iraq and western Iran. But rainfall accumulation in Syria and eastern Iran has been similar to last year and in Turkey, it has been worse.
“Significant producing areas have experienced generally unfavourable planting conditions,” said the report.
Even in Iraq, where rainfall has been appreciably better than last year, there is not sufficient moisture to allow for healthy crop establishment.
Last year’s harvest was a disaster due to a severe region-wide drought that ravaged yields from western Turkey to eastern Iran.
“In most areas the exceedingly dry weather pattern lasted from planting time in September through harvest in June, resulting in one of the worst agricultural droughts in recent decades. Total regional wheat production declined approximately 7.4 million tonnes, or 19 percent,” said Shean in his report.
Wheat output would have tumbled further if it weren’t for the fact that 40 to 50 percent of wheat acreage in Syria, Iran and Iraq and 20 percent in Turkey is irrigated.
But the 2008 drought caused substantial declines in the region’s irrigation reservoirs and wells.
“The overall shortage of irrigation supplies continues into the current 2009-10 winter grain growing season and has the potential to prevent a full recovery in crop production even if rainfall conditions improve,” stated the report.
In other words, a second consecutive year of drought would likely result in an even smaller crop from the Middle East, said Shean in an interview.
Syria is of particular interest to Canadian farmers because it is a large exporter of durum wheat. Shean said ground water resources have been seriously depleted in that country.
“I haven’t had anyone in the country disagree with me on that,” he said.
Middle Eastern countries are forecast to import about 16 million tonnes of wheat in 2008-09, which is a 5.8 million tonne, or 72 percent increase, over the previous year.
Iran and Turkey are the two biggest wheat producing countries in the region. Because of last year’s drought, Turkey is expected to import 2.1 million tonnes of wheat and Iran will approach five million tonnes.
Canada has been a beneficiary of that business. In the first three months of the 2008-09 crop year Iran purchased 387,000 tonnes of Canadian wheat and Turkey imported 27,500 tonnes. The same time last year neither country had bought wheat from Canada.
Export data for November and December has not been released but exports to the Middle East are expected to increase due to plunging ocean freight costs.
Iraq last week announced it had bought 300,000 tonnes, one third of it from Canada.
Turkey will be one of the first countries in the region to issue a 2009-10 production estimate and all eyes will be on that report.
“If Turkey’s crop suffers, that will be big news in the world market,” said Shean.
Iran is notoriously secretive about its estimates. Shean said crop watchers suspected the country had a drought in 2008 because of the dry weather in neighboring Iraq, but it wasn’t confirmed until the country’s commerce minister said Iran would import large quantities of wheat.
While western Iran has the most favourable moisture outlook relative to last year, the profile in the rest of the country, where about half the wheat is grown, is as bad or worse than last year.
“The Iranian crop may not recover even if they get great rain,” said Shean.
