Italy should raise wheat output this year after farmers planted more grain, encouraged by last year's high prices, the chairman of Milan's cereals bourse said on Tuesday. The result will be a fall in wheat purchases by Italy, which relies on imports to cover about half its needs and usually buys standard quality wheat from France and Germany.
"Italy has planted 20 percent more wheat (than last year), so it will produce more and import less," Associazione Granaria di Milano Chairman Enrico Ferrario told Reuters at the cereals bourse on the outskirts of Milan.
Ferrario said it was too early to make precise forecasts. Italy's biggest farmers group Coldiretti expects stable wheat output this year as an estimated 10-17 percent rise in the area planted to soft and durum wheat was likely to be offset by a possible 25-30 percent fall in yields due to warm weather.
Ferrario said Italy might reduce imports of standard quality wheat from France this year if domestic crops increased, but would have to import high-protein wheat from the United States, Germany and Austria, as it usually does.
Ferrario said imports of US Northern Spring high-protein wheat fell to about 200,000 tonnes last year from the usual 300,000 tonnes because it was considered too expensive. He could not be drawn on forecasts for this year imports.
One trader forecast US Northern Spring wheat imports at 200,000 tonnes this year. According to estimates by various traders, Italy imports between 300,000 and 500,000 tonnes of US Northern Spring wheat a year. This type of wheat was quoted at 222-223 euros a tonne in Milan on Tuesday, unchanged from last week.
Ferrario said wheat prices would rise this year but not as much as in 2006, when they soared 30-40 percent. Italian statistics agency ISTAT has estimated last year's soft wheat output at 3.124 million tonnes and durum wheat output at 4.089 million, down from 3.298 million and 4.567 million tonnes respectively.
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