TUNISIA (11 February)
Sowing of the wheat and barley crops has been recently completed under generally favourable weather conditions. Crops are developing satisfactorily and the prospects for the 2004 winter crops to be harvested from May are favourable so far. Barring adverse weather for the rest of the growing season, output of wheat and barley in 2004 is forecast at 1.3 million tonnes and 0.51 million tonnes, respectively. These levels of production are drastically lower than the record outputs of 1.98 million tonnes for wheat and 0.91 million tonnes for barley estimated for 2003, but remain above the average for the previous five years. Thus, imports of cereals in the marketing year ending in June 2005 will decrease for the second year in succession.
Imports of wheat in 2003/04 (July/June) are forecast at 0.6 million tonnes, sharply down compared to 1.4 million tonnes estimated for the previous year. Imports of maize are anticipated to remain at the previous year’s level of 0.75 million tonnes.