Good to see our national crop forecaster continue to work overtime in overseeing downward pressure on farm returns. Perhaps they are taking lessons from the same people schooling the USDA and IGC. Always forecast more and keep them farmers poor ...
----------------------------------------------------- Australia wheat hopes 'simply too high' 13th September 2011, by Agrimoney.com
Australia's wheat exports will set a record by an even bigger margin than had been thought, after dry weather failed to wreak the damage that some observers had feared. Wheat shipments from the southern hemisphere's top exporter will hit 20.4m tonnes in 2011-12, state forecasters said, adding 300,000 tonnes to an estimate made in June. The revision, which came despite a small downgrade to 26.16m tonnes in the harvest forecast, would leave exports 1.75m tonnes ahead of those in the current season, and set a new record by a margin. The current all-time high, of 19.2m tonnes, was set 14 seasons ago. 'Simply too high'
However, the estimate from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resources Economics and Sciences (Abares) raised question marks among some analysts, many of whom have lower harvest hopes following dry weather in parts of New South Wales and Queensland. "We don't expect 2011-12 exports to be this large, primarily because of our smaller production estimates and Australia's logistical constraints," said Luke Mathews at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, who restated his own estimate of a 23.5m-tonne harvest. "Abares' wheat production forecast is simply too high." It was "extremely unlikely" that the crop would come so close to last year's record 26.3m-tonne crop, "given recent weather has been less than ideal in many key growing regions". "In order to achieve Abares production forecast, seasonal conditions over the next few months need to be perfect. Perfect conditions rarely occur in agriculture," Mr Mathews said. The US Department of Agriculture on Monday estimated the harvest at 25.0m tonnes and shipments at 17.0m tonnes. 'Markedly higher yields'
Abares officials acknowledged that parts of New South Wales and Queensland would "need further rain in the next few weeks to achieve average yields". However, they highlighted the "marked turnaround" in conditions in Western Australia which look set to near-double the state's harvest, to 9.0m tonnes, returning it to top rank among grain-producing states. "Yields are forecast to be markedly higher than the drought-affected crop of 2010?11 and, in general, are forecast to be above the five-year drought-exclusive average, given the timely and sufficient rainfall to date," Abares said. A larger crop in Western Australia would play to Australia's logistical strengths, with the state's grain export infrastructure viewed as less congested than in the east. Doubts over the resilience of eastern infrastructure initially left many forecasters doubting whether shipments in 2010-11 could exceed 15m tonnes.
