International Grains Council

The world is headed toward the biggest corn harvest in history, 4 percent larger than last year, at 1.166 billion tonnes, said the International Grains Council on Thursday.

World grain production will reach an all-time high of 2.23 billion tonnes, with record-setting wheat and corn harvests, said the International Grains Council on Thursday. The global inventory of all grains will rise for the first time in four years.

Record-high demand for grain during the 2019/20 marketing year will draw down world grain reserves to their lowest level in five years, said the International Grains Council on Thursday. It would be the third straight year of declines in global carryover stocks.

Drought in Australia, Europe and Russia, three of the great wheat growers of the world, will result in the first decline in global wheat production in six years, said the International Grains Council. The London-based IGC says the large downturn in wheat will add momentum to a drop-off in …

The International Grains Council forecasts a modest decline in global grain production that will lead to a sharp reduction in the grain “carryover” at the end of 2018/19.

Larger corn crops in Argentina and the United States will push global grain production to the second-highest total ever, just a year after the record was set, said the International Grains Council, based in London. The global appetite for grain continues to grow, likely setting its own record, so the global stockpile will shrink by 5 percent, said the council’s monthly Grain Market Report.

Although the world will harvest the third-largest grain crop ever in 2017/18 — only 4 percent smaller than the record set last season — the global grain inventory will decline for the first time in five years, forecasts the International Grains Council.

The world’s grain stockpile will shrink nearly 7 percent by the end of the new marketing year, forecasts the International Grains Council. The reason, said the group, is a smaller harvest—down 3 percent—and the second year of record-high consumption.

Prospects for the winter wheat crop are broadly favorable world wide, said the International Grains Council, which forecasts an all-wheat harvest this year of 735 million metric tons, a 2 percent decline from 2016/17 that will do little to cut into stockpiles that have swelled by nearly 25 percent in three years. "Only a small contraction in end-season stocks is expected," said the council's monthly Grain Markets Report.

With the world headed for record-setting wheat, corn and rice harvests, the inventory at the end of this marketing year will be the largest ever — a three-month supply that would weigh on commodity prices, said the International Grains Council. The council's index of grain and oilseed prices, "pressured by increasing heavy spot supplies," was near a five-month low, as farmers in the northern hemisphere report good overall yields.

Prospects for wheat and corn crops brightened in the past month, chiefly in the United States and the former Soviet Union, so the world is headed for "an all-time peak" grain crop of 2.069 billion tonnes, forecast the International Grains Council, based in London. The forecast is a sharp 3 percent larger than in July and portends the largest grain glut on record.

Corn production will surge by a hefty 5 percent worldwide, pushing global grain production to within shouting distance of the record set two years ago, said the International Grains Council. Bigger-than-expected wheat and corn crops in the United States will be a factor in the near-record harvest and an expansion in the season-ending "carry over" stocks for the fourth year in a row.

The outlook for wheat and corn crops in the major grain-growing countries of the world has improved by 10 million tonnes in the past month, said the International Grains Council in forecasting the second-largest global grain harvest ever. Despite an upturn in consumption, the grain carry-over at the end of 2016/17 would be a record 474 million tonnes, up 6 million tonnes from 2015/16, the current record.

Adverse weather in South America - harvest-time rain in Argentina and drought in Brazil - will reduce the global soybean crop by 1.5 percent in the current crop year, says the International Grains Council.

A UN agency says prices for staple food grains, such as wheat or rice, "appear stable for at least another season" as a result of its forecast of large crops, ample stockpiles and relatively sluggish demand in the months ahead.

Farmers around the world are expect to expand corn plantings by 1 percent in 2016/17, including larger corn areas in the United States, the former Soviet Union, South America and Africa, says the International Grains Council.

Economic turmoil in China, the world's largest importer of rice and soybeans, could dampen world trade in feedstuffs and soybeans, said the International Grains Council.

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.