UNITED STATES (9 February)
The winter wheat area for the 2004 harvest is officially estimated at 17.6 million hectares, 3 percent down from the previous year’s area. The Hard Red Winter wheat area fell by 4 percent and much of the crop in the western and southern Great Plains is reported to have suffered from lack of moisture during emergence and establishment, with a likely negative impact in the winter-hardiness of crops. Furthermore, with limited snow cover reported in many parts of the Plains, large areas of dormant crops are vulnerable to low temperatures. The White Winter wheat area also dropped due to lack of soil moisture at planting time. By contrast, the Soft Red Winter wheat area in the Corn Belt states is up slightly from last year reflecting increased incentive for producers from this crop, which performed well last year compared to alternative crops. At this stage, with little change expected in the spring wheat area, given the reduced area and relatively poor condition of the main winter wheat crop, it looks likely that the aggregate US wheat output will decline somewhat in 2004 from the previous year’s crop, which was the largest of the past five years (63.6 million tonnes).
The final estimate of the 2003 coarse grains crop is 276 million tonnes, almost 13 percent up from the previous year's poor crop and above the average of the past five years. Of the total, maize is estimated to account for about 257 million tonnes. The 2004 coarse grain sowing will start from March.