The world grain harvest “is still expected to be the third-largest ever,” despite a heat wave that hurt the wheat and corn crops in Europe, said the International Grains Council in its monthly Grain Market Report. Reduced prospects in Europe are outweighed by forecasts of larger crops of corn in China and sorghum in the United States. Overall, the global harvest would be only 2-percent smaller than last year’s record-setter and nearly as large as the bumper crop of the preceding season, said the IGC.
“Heavy opening stocks will offset most of the decline in the harvest,” said IGC, and at the end of the trade year “inventories are expected to remain comfortable.” World trade in corn is expected to be a record 123 million tonnes during 2015/16 and sorghum trade is forecast for a 30-year high. China shot into prominence as a sorghum importer over the past year and U.S. farmers responded with a 24-percent increase in plantings of the drought-tolerant crop.
IGC raised its forecast of China’s corn crop by 2 percent from its June estimate, to a record 225 million tonnes. It pegged the U.S. corn crop at 377.8 million tonnes, compared to the USDA’s forecast of 343.7 million tonnes.