Dry weather impacting Australia wheat

With an anticipated decline in planted area and yields, wheat production in Australia for the 2024-25 marketing year is forecast at 25.8 million tonnes, 3% below the previous 10-year average, according to a report from the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture.

The projected output is slightly below last year’s 26-million-tonne harvest and far below the record crop of 40.5 million tonnes in 2022-23, FAS said.

The agency forecasts a 400,000-hectare decline in wheat planted area for 2024-25.

“This is due to vastly different growing conditions at the start of the period of planting between Australia’s eastern and western production regions,” FAS said.

It noted that the eastern part of the country has received average to above-average rainfall in the first four months of 2024, while western and southern Australia “have entered the start of the planting period with below-average root zone soil moisture and have yet to receive fall rains to get the winter planting going in earnest.”

Traditionally among the world’s largest wheat exporters, Australia is projected to export 17.5 million tonnes in 2024-25, a 13% decline from the previous year.

Tags: crop forecast, Australia, wheat, drought