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Cold weather, floods cut East European grain crops

10 июля 2010 года

MOSCOW, June 17 (Reuters) - Winter grain losses and a late spring, which has delayed the start of sowing, is likely to cut this year's grain crop in Russia and Ukraine, while cereal production in Poland will shrink due to floods, analysts and officials said.

The spring grain sowing campaign is almost complete in Russia with farmers having sown nearly 29 million hectares of land by June 9, down from 30.8 million hectares a year ago, due to the cold spring.

Wheat and barley are the main cereals grown in Russia.

Russia has recently cut its official grain crop forecast to between 88 million and 90 million tonnes from previous a 97 million, which was in line with last year's production volume.

SovEcon agricultural analysts expect Russia to harvest 87 million tonnes of grain this year because of higher winter grain losses and expected lower yields.

It expects the wheat crop to fall to 55.5 million tonnes from 61.7 million in 2009 and the barley crop to 16 million tonnes from 17.9 million.

The Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) cut its wheat output forecast to 58 million tonnes from previous 58.5 million tonnes, citing a delay in the sowing campaign. But it kept its barley output forecast at 14.8 million tonnes.

UKRAINE'S CROP MAY FALL 15 PERCENT

Ukraine's spring sowing is almost complete after a three-week delay caused by cold weather. The area sown with grains this year is believed to have shrunk, although final sowings data are not yet available.

Farm minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk has said experts forecast the country's grain crop to fall to 40 million tonnes from last year's 46 million.

"We have said that the crop could be 46 (million), 47 (million) or 48 million tonnes this year. But academicians say it may fall by 15 percent against 2009," Prysyazhyuk told Reuters.

"We do not know why, because there were good rains across Ukraine and this ought to improve crop conditions."

Weather forecasters have already cut their estimate for Ukraine's 2010 winter grain harvest to 21 million tonnes from about 24.5 million in 2009.

UkrAgroConsult agriculture consultancy however said the winter grain harvest might reach at least 22.5 million tonnes.

But it said rain in late May had stimulated the spread of diseases that could hit the harvest. Earlier this week it raised its grain crop forecast to 45.3 million tonnes from the previous 44.3 million mainly due to a higher maize harvest outlook.

FLOODS KILL PART OF POLAND'S CROP

Poland's total grain production in 2010 is expected to fall to about 27 million tonnes from 29.8 million tonnes in 2009 as some sown areas have been damaged by floods, Polish Grain Chamber, a major grain producers' group said.

"We lost about 150,000-200,000 hectares sown to grains," Maciej Tomaszewicz, the head of the Polish Grain Chamber, told Reuters.

Latest estimates from the Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics have also indicated a drop in the grain output to 26.1 million tonnes due to a late and rainy spring.

Wieslaw Lopaciuk, analyst at the Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics, told Reuters he estimates the wheat crop to be 8.57 million tonnes, rye crop 3.18 million tonnes, barley 3.52 million tonnes, triticale 4.41 million tonnes and oats 1.26 million tonnes.

He estimates total area sown to grains this year at 8.37 million hectares, down from 8.6 million hectares a year ago.

Source: Reuters  |  #grain   |  Comments: 0   Views: 37

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