Total For Australian Wheat, Canola & Barley Harvest Now Down 46% From June Forecast - 18 MT

[hatrack]

THE hot, dry spring has ruined hopes for the winter cereal crop, leaving farmers to experience back-to-back droughts for the first time since World War II. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics is forecasting a combined wheat, barley and canola crop of 18million tonnes, down from the September forecast of 22.5 million tonnes. The June forecast was for 33 million tonnes.

Although this year's crop is better than last year's drought-ravaged 14 million tonnes, it is 42 per cent below the five-year average. The wheat crop alone is expected to be 12.1 million tonnes, well below the five-year average of 21.5 million tonnes, according to ABARE's special drought report released yesterday.

ABARE chief commodity analyst Terry Sheales said he had never seen two crops in consecutive years that were so low.

"You tend to get a big bounce back after a drought year and it was shaping up that way," he said. "Mid-year, it was looking really good, there was plenty of moisture about, people had got crops in at the right time. It has been downhill ever since for most of it. It just stopped raining."

EDIT

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22677011-2702,00.html

[kestrel91316]

1. "It just stopped raining." Yeah -

I suspect the Anasazi said about the same thing before they were forced to desert their cities in the American Southwest.......