European Commission has lowered harvest forecasts for major crops in the EU, but quotes have hardly reacted to this

In the October report, the European Commission experts significantly lowered their forecasts for harvests and stocks of all major crops in the EU in MY 2024/25, but prices did not react and continued to fall.

Production forecasts were lowered compared to previous estimates:

• soft wheat – by 1.9 mln tonnes to 112.6 mln tonnes, its exports – by 1 mln tonnes to 25 mln tonnes and stocks – by 1.3 mln tonnes to 10.4 mln tonnes
• corn – by 2.1 to 58 million tons, and stocks – by 3.5 to 17.4 million tons,
• barley – by 0.7 to 49.8 million tons, stocks – by 0.9 to 3.2 million tons, while the export estimate was left at 10 million tons,
• soybeans – by 0.2 to 2.8 million tons, while the import forecast was increased by 0.6 to 14 million tons,
• sunseed – by 1.4 to 8.1 mln tonnes, while the forecast of consumption in the EU was reduced by 1.4 to 8.3 mln tonnes.

At the same time, the forecast of durum wheat production was left at 7.2 million tons, imports – at 3 million tons, and the stocks estimate was increased by 0.5 to 1.3 million tons.

Quotations for wheat and corn on the stock exchange in Paris after strong growth in September fell in October:

• November corn futures – by 6.3% to 200 €/t or 218 $/t (which corresponds to the price level of early September 2024),
• December wheat futures – by 4.8% to 217 €/t or $236.5/t (which corresponds to the price level of September 1, 2024).

During this time, November rapeseed futures rose by 6.8% to 517 €/t or $564/t (+9.6% over two months) amid rapidly rising prices for sunflower and vegetable oils.

Tags: wheat, sunseed, crop forecast, corn, barley, EU, soybean