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SYDNEY: Asia’s wheat stockpiles are set to grow this year as major
exporter Australia, along with China and India, forecast larger
crops, raising the prospect of lower prices for the golden grain,
analysts say.
Official figures released last week indicate
Australia is likely to reclaim its rank as the world’s third
largest wheat exporter after the United States and Canada.
While China has predicted a 2.4-percent increase
in wheat yields from a year ago, and India, the world’s second
largest wheat producer, has forecast this year’s harvest will hit
a record 78.4 million tons.
It is expected the increased crops will help
ease prices, which have surged as a result of the global food
crisis, which has hit developing nations, where wheat is often a
staple food among millions of poor, particularly hard.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and
Resource Economics (Abare) said wheat production was forecast to be
22.5 million tons in 2008 to 2009—well above the 13 million tons
harvested last year.
Analysts said more farmers had planted wheat
after shrinking stockpiles and increased demand pushed prices to
historic highs earlier this year, with the price hitting a record
US$10.93 a bushel in Chicago in February.
Wheat crops have been particularly attractive to
Australian farmers seeking a quick income after years of devastating
drought, which has seen many move from sheep farming to the more
lucrative grain.
John Hogan, who is acting branch manager in
agriculture and trade at Abare, said this year’s northern
hemisphere wheat harvests were also expected to be bigger “so
there is expected to be an increase in world grain stock.”
“Prices generally have been drifting lower
because of expectations of a higher world crop,” he added.
In Asia, the China National Grain and Oils
Information Center has forecast 2008 wheat yields will reach 112.5
million tons.
At the same time, China’s wheat consumption
has dropped to below 100 million tons a year, director of the
center, Shang Qiangmin told the Guangming Daily in April.
“Generally speaking the weather was good for
growth later this year and we had plenty of rains,” Feng Lichen, a
trader at the Commodity Exchange in the northeast Chinese port city
of Dalian told Agence France-Presse.
India has forecast that its harvest for this
year will rise 3.45 percent to 78.4 million tons, bettering a
previous forecast of 76.78 million tons.
Agriculture Minister
Sharad Pawar said the harvest would be “the highest since
India’s independence” in 1947 thanks to plentiful monsoon rains.
-- AFP
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