When you look at the vegetation map of the world in the special report on markets on page 36, you can see that global production prospects are good.
We’ve been writing for months now about the excellent South American soybean and corn crops. Private and government analysts increase their crop estimate each time they update their forecasts.
India had a terrible summer monsoon, but the winter crop is so good, authorities there are considering allowing regional exports of wheat and chickpea prices are falling.
North Africa looks like it will have its second consecutive successful crop, which is bad news for durum prices.
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Eastern Australia has much better soil moisture heading into seeding than it did last year at this time.
Western Europe has excellent moisture coming out of winter.
Russia seeded a slightly larger winter wheat crop, but expects slightly more winterkill so the early forecast is that the final crop size will be about equal to last year.
The U.S. winter wheat crop was seeded on fewer acres last fall, but came through winter in better shape than it did the previous year.
Kansas, the largest winter wheat producer, said its crop as of March 7 was 60 percent good to excellent, compared to 45 percent last year.
There are no concerns about China’s winter wheat crop.
An area of southwest China is severely dry, but the wheat crop is in the northeast.
The only significant worries are:
- Dry conditions in Alberta, western Saskatchewan and the Peace region
- The rapidly melting snow pack in the U.S. Midwest and North Dakota that could cause flooding and delay spring seeding
- An ice crust in Ukraine affecting about nine percent of the seeded winter crop area and about 13 percent of the crop in poor condition coming out of a tough winter.
