Consumers, livestock and industry will chew through a record 1.99 billion tonnes of food and feed grains this marketing year and world grain stocks still should rise by nearly 2 percent, said the International Grains Council in its monthly Grain Market Report. With the harvest season winding down in the Northern Hemisphere, IGC estimated the grain crop will be only 1 percent smaller than the record set in 2014/15. Wheat will set a record, it said. Corn, rice and soybeans would be near record highs. The grain inventory at the end of 2015/16, forecast at 454 million tonnes, would be the largest in 29 years and equal to a three-month supply.
“Population growth is increasing food demand, while feed use is placed only fractionally lower than last season’s record. Industrial use is also predicted to expand, but projected annual growth is much slower than the rapid rates of the past, with increases for starch now leading the rise, rather than ethanol,” said the grains council, based in London.