EU farmers will keep soft wheat area the same for the 2017 harvest despite the depressant of weak prices, Strategie Grains said, citing a limited switching of land to rapeseed instead.
The influential analysis group in its first detailed forecast for EU cereals sowings for next year’s harvest pegged soft wheat area at 24.3 million ha, little changed from the 24.2 million ha planted last time.
The forecast, which tallies with earlier guidance from Strategie Grains of little change in wheat area, is in line too with expectations from some other commentators, such as the International Grains Council, which forecast EU wheat area proving “broadly unchanged” YoY.
And Strategie Grains echoed too IGC comments of a lack of “attractive alternatives” for growers despite relatively firm prices of rapeseed, of which, like wheat, the EU is the top producer.
In fact, Strategie Grains last week pegged EU rapeseed area for the 2017 harvest at 6.62 million ha, up by 90,000 ha YoY, with poor conditions during the sowings window, which was weighted earlier than that for wheat, limiting sowings
In some areas, commentators have also flagged the relative difficulty of growing rapeseed following restrictions on the use of neonicotinoid insecticides, curbs viewed as leaving crops in many areas vulnerable to pests such as cabbage stem flea beetle.
The issue has been particularly acute in the UK, potentially because of its relatively warm and wet winters, where rapeseed area for 2017 was last week pegged by the AHDB bureau at a 13-year low of 557,000 hectares, down by 4% YoY.
“There has been a dramatic decrease in the east of the country, a 28% decline attributed to cabbage stem flea beetle damages, and a lack of moisture which made establishment very difficult”, Millie Askew, AHDB cereals and oilseeds analyst, said.
By contrast, rapeseed is seen by UFOP as having gained some ground in Germany, with the oilseeds association pegging sowings for the 2017 harvest at 1.35 million hectares, a gain of 1.5% YoY.
Strategie Grains also forecast little change in sowings of winter barley, limiting scope for a release of land for an uplift in plantings of spring-seeded crops such as corn, the area of which will be stable in 2017 at relatively low levels.
The group last week pegged seeding of sunflowers, another spring crop, at 4.17 million ha for 2017 – up by 10,000 ha YoY.
One crop which is seen losing area is durum, the wheat variety used to make pasta, area for which was seen dropping by 7% to 2.7 million ha. (Agrimoney/Business World Magazine)
