From AgriMoney.com
Lanworth re-opened doubts over the Black Sea grains harvest, and stoked concerns over Australia too, as it cautioned that the world wheat harvest would narrowly fail to cover demand in 2013-14.
The analysis group, which uses satellite imagery to a large extent in its forecast, pegged the world wheat crop at 694.3m tonnes, a sharp rise on last year's harvest, but nearly 7m tonnes below the US Department of Agriculture's initial estimate, revealed last week.
It would also fall marginally below demand, fostering a small drop in world stocks over 2012-13 rather than the rise to 186.4m tonnes that Washington foresees.
Lanworth was more upbeat than the USDA on the harvest in the former Soviet Union state of Kazakhstan, upgrading its estimate by 700,000 tonnes to 17.4m tonnes thanks to "recent above-average precipitation and cool temperatures" which have boosted hopes in major producing regions.
However, on most other major producers it was more downbeat, including on Kazakh's regional peers, Russia and Ukraine, which investors have increasingly focused on thanks to dry weather in some important grain-growing areas.
'Much lower soil moisture'
Recent rains had been seen by many observers as improving crop prospects, with consultancy Ikar earlier this week raising its forecast for Russia's wheat crop by 1.3m tonnes to 53.8m tonnes, while the Russian Grains Union lifting its range estimate for the overall grains harvest to 90m-100m tonnes, from 90m-95m tonnes.
But Lanworth kept its forecast for the Russian crop at 50.8m tonnes, flagging soil moisture levels which are "much lower than last year" in the Southern district, a key source of the country's wheat exports.
For Ukraine, Lanworth cut its wheat harvest forecast by 1.6m tonnes to 20.3m tonnes, "based on expected warm conditions" and flagging "dry conditions that occurred from April through the first half of May".
The downgraded forecast is in line with an estimate from UkrAgroConsult of 20.2m tonnes, but below the USDA figure of 22.0m tonnes.
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