Flooding in Australia May Propel Wheat Crop to Record, Rabobank Predicts

Rain that caused billions of dollars of destruction in Australia could propel wheat output in the fourth-largest exporter to a record next harvest and boost irrigated crops after floods swept formerly parched land.
Heavy rains that damaged crops this season have also saturated soils, providing moisture for the next wheat-growing season and raising dam levels for irrigated crops such as cotton, commodities analyst Wayne Gordon and sustainability analyst Tracey Allen at Rabobank Groep NV said in an interview yesterday.
Rising milling wheat and cotton supplies from Australia may help curb global prices that soared last year on concerns that demand may outpace supply. Floods this month followed the country’s wettest July-to-December on record, ending a drought that lasted a decade in some areas and filling dams in the Murray-Darling Basin, which produces more than a third of the nation’s food supply.
“It’s plausible to see that we could plant and perhaps grow a record wheat crop in the coming year,” Gordon said by phone. Still, that depends on improved production in Western Australia, where drought persists, and “top-up” rains in the east, he said. The grain is mostly planted from April to June.
Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade gained 47 percent last year after Russia’s worst drought in at least 50 years prompted the country to ban exports and amid concern that rains would cut milling-quality supplies from Australia. The contract reached a five-month high of $8.25 a bushel on Jan. 3. Cotton on ICE Futures U.S. in New York reached a record $1.5912 a pound on Dec. 21.
Crop Forecast
Australia may produce 25 million metric tons of wheat from the current harvest, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Jan. 12. Output may reach a record 26.8 million tons, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, known as Abares, estimated Dec. 7, as output in the east offset drought in Western Australia. The country produced 26.1 million tons in 2003-2004, according to Australian government data. Read more ...

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