CBA forecasts down expected Aussie wheat production
Despite good spring rain in Western Australia, one of the nation’s largest banks has still revised down Australia’s expected wheat production.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia now expects just 23.6 million tonne of wheat will be harvested in 2013.
The reduction is mostly due to the harsh spring that farmers experienced across the Eastern sea board.
Which couldn’t be off set by the higher than average yields in WA and South Australia according to commodity strategist Luke Mathews.
“Very mild temperatures and most importantly consistent rainfall and as a result of that we’ve lifted our WA wheat crop forecast from around 7 million tonnes in August to over 8 million tonnes today,” he says of the improvement in Western Australia’s yield estimate.
“We’ve seen Australia’s winter grain and oilseeds prospects fluctuate consistently throughout the 2013 growing season,” he says.
“And that fluctuation not only relates to big contrasts in terms of individual regions, in terms of how they are tracking through the season but we’ve also seen a significant contrast develop between prospects on the east and west coasts of Australia.”