The EU again cuts its corn and wheat harvest forecasts for 2022

The European Comission on Thursday cut its forecast for this year’s corn crop in the drought-hit European Union by more than a million tonnes.

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In the supply and demand data, the Commission lowered its estimate of usable maize production in the European Union in 2022/23 to 53.1 million tonnes from 53 million a month ago, providing further confirmation that the harvest will be the smallest in at least 15 years.

Maize crops endured heat waves and what is expected to be Europe’s worst drought on record during its crucial summer growing period.

The successive downward revisions of the Commission’s crop forecasts have cut the forecast production from 77 million tons projected at the end of June.

However, forecast EU maize imports for the 2022/23 season have remained unchanged at 23 million tonnes.

EU maize imports have been running at more than double the pace of last season as buyers have taken advantage of a recovery in shipments from war-torn Ukraine to help cover the crop shortfall of the EU.

The Commission has also lowered its forecast for usable production of common wheat in the EU in 2022/23 to 126.4 million tonnes, up from 127.0 million forecast at the end of November.

Exports of the most produced cereal in the EU remained unchanged from last month at 34 million tonnes.

The lower production forecast led the Commission to cut its forecast for common wheat stocks at the end of 2022/23 to 14.4 million tonnes from 15.5 million.

As for barley, the expected useful production in the EU for 2022/23 was unchanged at 51.6 million tonnes.

As for oilseeds, the Commission slightly raised its usable production forecast for rapeseed to 19.6 million tonnes, up from 19.4 million the previous month.

Source: Reuters