Dry conditions and the threat of El Nino have convinced Australia’s
official crop forecaster to expect a much smaller crop this year.
But other forecasters say it is too soon to assume the Aussie crop is
in real trouble.
“Coming out with a number that low this early seems a little
pessimistic,” Canadian Wheat Board weather analyst Guy Ash said about
the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics’ forecast
of a 20.5 million tonne wheat crop. That is 3.5 million tonnes down
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from its previous forecast and would be a five-year low.
“A couple of good rains would make a lot of difference. The
improvements could be quite dramatic,” Ash said.
Australia has been dry through most of the seeding period for winter
wheat, but Ash said rain has fallen in the past week, and there is less
of a rush to plant a crop there than in Canada. They have a longer
seeding window because they don’t have threats of frost.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, or ABARE,
has also kept its production forecasts conservative because of an
apparent development of El Nino, a weather system that tends to hurt
Australian grain production.
Ash said other sources don’t agree with ABARE’s estimates.
Both the Australian Wheat Forecasters and the United States Department
of Agriculture still anticipate a 23 million tonne wheat crop.
Ash said El Nino is a wild card, but it’s too early to assume it will
develop at precisely the time it would be most damaging to Australian
crops.
Australia, like Canada, can suffer from prolonged dryness, Ash said.
But that means a well-timed rain can make a lot of difference and
completely throw off early production forecasts. The Australian winter
wheat crop has a long time to go before it fully develops, which gives
it lots of catch-up time.
ABARE is also forecasting poor barley and canola crops.
It expects barley production to be 6.12 million tonnes, well down from
last year’s 7.46 million tonnes and off the March estimate of 6.48
million tonnes.
Canola production is estimated at 1.26 million tonnes, down from last
year’s 1.6 million tonnes and down from the March estimate of 1.85
million tonnes.
Statcom canola analyst Nolita Clyde thought this was too pessimistic.
“At this point in the crop year, it seems a little premature to write
off 32 percent of the canola crop,” she said after the ABARE numbers
were released.
Ash said the Australian wheat crop has a good track record of bouncing
back from bad prospects.
“This is pretty typical where you get seeding delays, they get some
rains, then they plant,” Ash said.
“They had a similar situation last year where it was dry during seeding
and it stayed dry through much of June and July, which is their winter,
and people trimmed the (wheat) estimates down to 20, 21 million tonnes
of production.
“Along came rains in August and September, their filling stage, and
they did very well and the USDA numbers were over 24 million tonnes
(for final production).”
