Brussels, 01/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 28 September, the committee of agricultural organisations and cooperatives in the EU (Copa-Cogeca) circulated its latest estimates on cereal production for the 2012-2013 year. Soft wheat, maize and triticale are down, in contrast with barley, rye, oats and durum wheat.
Copa-Cogeca forecasts Community cereal production of 280.5 million tonnes for the 2012-2013 season, down by 2.2% compared to the previous year. Soft wheat production is expected to reach 126.1 million tonnes (-1.8%), durum wheat 8.3 million tonnes (+3.1%), barley 52.7 million tonnes (+1.5%), maize 60.9 million tonnes (-10.4%), rye 8.9 million tonnes (+19.5%), oats 8.2 million tonnes (+4.8%), triticale 9.6 million tonnes (-4.6%), sorghum 0.58 million tonnes (-15.2%).
Spain and Portugal were hit by drought, and bad weather affected corn production in several EU countries, Copa-Cogeca says. The centre of Europe had good harvest conditions. The crops that were destroyed were replaced by cereal varieties with a lower yield. Despite an increased maize area, production will fall as a result of bad weather conditions during the spring period. “It is clear now that we do not have cereal mountains in the EU, and world stocks are also pretty low”, the EU agricultural organisations note. EU 2012-2013 production of cereals is down by 6 million tonnes, and similar trends have been found in other parts of the world (severe drought in the US and Russia). (LC/transl.fl)