HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) – Canola in the European Union’s main producing countries urgently needs rain and there are increasing signs the crop in top producer Germany has suffered significant drought damage, analysts said May 12.
Europe imports little Canadian canola because of the dispute over genetically modified crops, but a bad crop could force it to buy more canola from Ukraine and Australia, reducing the competition for Canada in other markets.
In Germany, only 38 percent of average monthly rain fell in April, and early May was also dry.
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“Irreparable damage has now been suffered by German rapeseed,” one German crop analyst said. “The losses are especially serious in the north, where some areas have lost 20 to 30 percent of likely yields.”
“The national picture is still difficult to judge, but German crop forecasts are likely to get large cuts in coming weeks.”
German 2011 rapeseed output may fall to 4.6 to 4.8 million tonnes from 5.75 million tonnes last year, analyst Oil World estimates.
Dryness also haunts production prospects in No. 2 producer France, but it was expected to get rain May 14-15 that could help pod filling. France produced 4.82 million tonnes of rapeseed in 2010.
No. 3 producer Britain has not yet suffered damage, but could use rain, said John Thorpe, head of oilseeds at
U.K. farmer co-operative Openfield. He said the U.K. rapeseed crop was now expected to be around 2.3 million tonnes, down from his previous projection of 2.4 million.
Last year, the U.K. harvested a record 2.2 million tonnes.
The dry weather this spring caused French analyst Strategie Grains to cut its forecast for this year’s soft wheat crop in the European Union by 3.6 million tonnes to 131.5 million tonnes.
That is still four percent above 2010 production of 126.4 million tonnes, it said in a monthly report.
“There has been very little rainfall since last month in most European countries and yield potentials for wheat and barley in several countries have already been impacted,” it said.
“West EU countries are the worst affected by the deterioration in yield potentials.”
The organization cut its outlook for durum production to 8.4 million tonnes, down 100,000 tonnes from April and down eight percent from last year.
The analyst also reduced its forecast for EU barley output this year by 300,000 tonnes to 54.2 million tonnes, now up two percent on 2010 production.
