Australia, the world's fourth-largest wheat exporter, may produce 3 percent less of the grain than previously forecast after adverse weather trimmed yields.
Output may be 22 million metric tons in the year ending June 30, the Canberra-based Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics said today in an e-mailed statement. That compares with its September prediction of 22.7 million tons and last year’s revised crop of 20.9 million tons.
According to Bloomberg News, the bureau's trimming of its forecast follows cuts made to predictions by National Australia Bank Ltd. and Commonwealth Bank of Australia after frosts and unseasonable hot weather lowered expectations. Australian farmers are currently harvesting their winter crops of wheat, barley and canola.
"Conditions deteriorated over spring in Western Australia, Queensland and, in particular, central west and southern New South Wales," the bureau's Deputy Executive Director Terry Sheales said in the statement.
Total winter grains output is forecast at 35.7 million tons, the bureau said. That compares with its September estimate of about 36 million tons.