Consultancy Strategie Grains increased its estimate for this year's grain maize harvest in the European Union for the second consecutive month on Thursday and now expects it to be larger than last year's crop. The EU's grain maize production in 2018 is now seen reaching 60.0 million tonnes, up from 59.4 million estimated in October, with the main revisions in Romania, Hungary, Austria and France, Strategie Grains said in a monthly report.
This year's maize harvest in the EU would be 1 percent above 2017 as very poor crops in drought-hit France and Germany were compensated by a rise in Romania and Hungary. In contrast, the consultancy cut its estimate for this year's barley crop in the 28-member bloc by 400,000 tonnes to 56.1 million tonnes, down 4 percent from last year.
The EU soft wheat crop is still expected at 127.0 million tonnes, unchanged from last month, but down 11 percent versus last year after many producers suffered a major drought over the summer. Projected EU wheat exports to third countries this season were expected at 19.5 million tonnes, up slightly from 19.4 million last month, but 1 million below the 2017/18 season.
"We still expect that the pace of EU wheat exports will accelerate sharply during the second half of the marketing year once Black Sea supplies begin to dry up," Strategie Grains said.
Attention was now turning to next year's harvest for which winter grain sowings are still under way. "The outlook is much better for the 2019 harvest: in the last couple of weeks, much-needed rains arrived across western and northern parts of the EU, giving farmers the opportunity to plant significantly more wheat than last year," Strategie Grains said.
"However, conditions remain very dry in the southeast EU countries." The analyst lifted its estimate for the bloc's soft wheat area ahead of the 2019 harvest to 24.3 million hectares, up from 24.2 million seen last month and 6 percent above 2018/19. Total EU barley area was expected broadly stable from the current season while the grain maize area would rise by 4 percent, it said.
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