Global wheat output is likely to rise to 601 million tonnes in 2004/05 from a nine-year-low of 557 million in 2003/04, when months of drought bruised crops across large swathes of Europe, the International Grains Council (IGC) said in its latest monthly report, published on Thursday.
The IGC said its estimate for the upcoming harvest was kept steady against last month's figure but added that its output estimate for 2003/04 had been marked up by three million tonnes at 557 million because of expected increases in Australia, Brazil and Argentina.
"Conditions generally remain favourable in the EU-25, where the crop is forecast at 128 million tonnes, up 22 million from last year," the report said, adding that improved harvests were also likely in Russia, Ukraine and India.
But for the United States, the IGC said wheat output would probably fall.
"Winter wheat plantings were down by three percent and some areas remain unfavourably dry - the total crop is forecast at 60 million tonnes compared with 64 million in 2003," it said.
In China, late plantings and a switch to more lucrative cotton means that wheat output in China will fall by three million tonnes to 83 million.
The IGC this month also left its estimate for 2003/04 world wheat seasonal ending stocks steady at 131 million tonnes, yet the figure is still sharply down when compared with the 163 million calculated at the close of the 2002/03 campaign.