Australia: Bullish forecast for wheat production

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Crop Report is the nation’s official estimate of grain production for the coming harvest, and the September report was released last week.

The Crop Report for September was particularly bullish for wheat production in Western Australia but also showed significant improvements in yields for east coast crops.

The headline wheat production forecast came in at 33.765 million tonnes, just 1% shy of last year, and 10.5% higher than the June estimate.

The increase in expected production means this year’s wheat crop is set to be the fourth highest on record, surpassing what was at the time a bumper crop in 2020–21.

With little change in planting areas between the June and September reports, the 10.5% boost in wheat production comes from improved yield forecasts. Regular readers will know we like to occasionally look at ‘Wheatcast’ forecasts from the CSIRO for a guide on how the crop is performing.

Figure 2 shows how the latest Crop Report compares to the June Crop Report and the median Wheatcast forecasts.

For the east coast, the Crop Report forecasts are well within the range of possible yields shown by Wheatcast, as ABARES factors in the favourable three-month rainfall outlook recently released by the Bureau of Meteorology.

The WA forecasts are interesting, as the 2.73 t/ha Crop Report number is well above the 2 t/ha Wheatcast figure. In fact, the Wheatcast maximum possible yield is forecast at around 2.35 t/ha, which is still well below the Crop Report forecast.

Tags: Production, wheat, yields, crop, forecast, ABARES, estimate, Australia, grain