SYDNEY, Australia – Further downgrades to Australia’s wheat crop are looming as drought deepens across the continent, with the national wheat exporter considering whether to cut its forecast.
AWB’s forecast of 23-25 million tonnes looks optimistic after other groups slashed their forecasts. Australian Crop Forecasters now expects around 18 million tonnes and rural services group Farmarco expects 18-20 million tonnes.
Forecasts by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics for 22.8 million tonnes and by the U.S. Department of Agriculture of 21.5 million tonnes also appear ambitious.
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“We’re currently looking at that,” AWB spokesperson Peter McBride said of the group’s market-sensitive crop forecast.
Despite recent good rains that gave eastern crops a temporary reprieve, the New South Wales state government last week said 94 percent of the state was in drought, up from 89 percent a month ago.
Rains in mid-June had allowed nearly all of the state’s anticipated 11.46 million acres of winter crops to be planted, but more showers were needed, state primary industries minister Ian Macdonald said.
Drought was also a big theme at this week’s annual conference of Australia’s biggest farmers group, the New South Wales Farmers Association.
Some parts of the state were in their fifth straight drought year, creating uncertainty for crops and having an impact on rural communities, the association’s president Jock Laurie said.
“At no other time since European settlement could farmers have withstood the climatic and complicating commodity price variables that you have over the last 10 years,” said federal agriculture minister Peter McGauran.
“Even the best of farmers are in dire straits,” he said.
