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Canada's wheat harvest to beat gloomy forecasts
25.08.2010 11:41 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) —
The fall in Canadas wheat harvest will be lower than the 2025% that many analysts have forecast, despite floods meaning that an area bigger than Denmark was taken out of production, official beancounters have said.
Statistics Canada has, following a survey of Canadas rain-plagued farmers, pegged the countrys wheat crop at 22.7m tonnes.
While down 14.5% year on year, because of spring flooding which prohibited planting and damaged many fields that were sown, the figure is significantly higher than the 21m tonnes forecast by the Canadian Wheat Board.
The US Department of Agriculture, whose data set the global benchmark, has pegged the harvest at 20.5m tonnes.
Canada, the second-biggest wheat exporting country, was the first of grains heavyweights to reveal crop problems, in mid-June, providing the foundations for the price rally which followed the first warnings over Russias crop later than month.
The report, which also pegged canola and oats harvests above market estimates, was viewed as bearish by analysts, with broker US Commodities terming it «negative» for crop prices.
Stats Can forecasts for Canadas 2010 harvest, (change on last year)
Wheat: 22.66m tonnes, (-14.5%)
Figures includes spring wheat: 16.97m tonnes, (-6.4%)
Canola: 10.87m tonnes, (-8.1%)
Corn: 10.82m tonnes, (+13.2%)
Barley: 8.49m tonnes, (-10.8%)
Oats: 2.39m tonnes, (-14.5%)
Canola fell 2.3% to Can7.90 a tonne, among its lowest levels of the last month, as of 14:00 GMT.
However, there are some concerns over the accuracy of the StatsCan data, which the Canadian Wheat Board warned earlier in the week said, in being based on a farm survey last month, may not take into account delays in crop development.
The board, which holds a monopoly over wheat exports from the countrys western agricultural powerhouse region, said that crop development «remains one to two weeks behind normal in Alberta and Saskatchewan», posing the threat that they will not be harvested before the first frosts, which typically strike in mid-September.
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