The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in its latest Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, has raised the
forecast for world cereal production in 2016 slightly to nearly 2,526 million
tonnes, reports NaijaAgroNet.
This figure, NaijaAgroNet notes is virtually the same as in 2015
and potentially on course to be the second-largest global harvest ever.
According to FAO, the larger figure results almost entirely from
improved prospects for wheat production, as winter weather conditions have been
favourable for prospective yields in the European Union, the Russian Federation
and Ukraine.
“At 717 million tonnes, the 2016 wheat output forecast remains
16 million tonnes short of last year's record,” experts at FAO said.
The Cereal Supply and Demand Brief
made available to NaijaAgroNet, FAO says new production forecast for global
coarse grains including barley, maize, millet, oats, rye and sorghum stands at
1,314 million tonnes, about one per cent below the 2015 output.
FAO, NaijaAgroNet gathered, left unchanged its worldwide rice
production forecast at 495 million tonnes, about one per cent higher than the
previous year, although the full impact of the El Niño weather phenomenon will
not be clear for a few more months.
“World cereal utilization in the season ahead is expected to
rise by only 1.1 percent due to slower growth in the use of cereals -
especially wheat and barley - as livestock feed,” FAO said.
As a result, the world body also said that cereal stocks are
likely to drop by 3.3 per cent or 21 million tonnes over the course of the new
season, while stocks are forecast to drop most in Brazil, Thailand, India,
China, Morocco, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Argentina and South Africa.
As said by FAO world trade in cereals is expected to decline
slightly to 367 million tonnes with sharp drops in China's imports of barley
and sorghum as well as EU imports of maize, more than offsetting soaring
imports of maize by drought-stricken countries in southern Africa.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
