France, Germany and the UK will lead a jump of 9m tonnes in European Union soft wheat production next year, as farmers scramble to cash in on high prices - for which the outlook remains "bullish".
Strategie Grains, in its first estimate for the 2011 harvest, pegged wheat production from the world's top grower of the grain, as a region, at 136.5m tonnes, a rise of 7.1% on this year's result.
Output at this level would be the highest since 2008, when the spike in crop prices to levels above those today saw large swathes of marginal land brought back into production.
And, indeed, for next year's harvest total EU grain sowings will increase by some 1.2m hectares to 57.2m hectares, Strategie Grains said.
Yield hopes
However, the analysis group's estimates also factor in higher yield estimates than those achieved this year, when a mixture of too much rain in eastern areas, and too little in northern and western states, held back output.
In Germany, the EU's second-ranked grain producer, which suffered particularly from harvest rains, wheat output is seen rising by 2m tonnes.
The French harvest, the region's biggest, will also rise by 2m tonnes, thanks to a combination of extra sowings and improved yields, while that in the third-ranked UK will rise by 1m tonnes.
Durum decline
Most other grains will also see production increases, with the barley harvest estimated at 55.5m tonnes, up 4.7% year on year, and corn output seen growing by 6.0% to 58.0mm tonnes.
Durum is the notable exception, of which EU farmers are expected to reap 8.3m tonnes in 2011, 700,000 tonnes less than this year, and the lowest total in at least three years.
However, the total grains harvest, while expected to rise to 291.3m tonnes, will remain 500,000 tonnes below the total of two years ago, and nearly 12m tonnes short of the 2008 record, Strategie Grains said.
In part, this reflects assumptions that yields will fail to match bumper levels seen three years ago. However, grain sowings, while higher year on year, will remain 2.6m hectares short of 2008 levels.
'Essentially bullish'
Separately, the Paris-based analysis group cut by 600,000 tonnes to 127.4m tonnes its forecast for the weather-affected harvest this year.
This downgrade was set to lead to stocks falling 300,000 tonnes further than previously expected over 2010-11 to 8.2m tonnes, a drop of 39% year on year.
However, it also implied weaker supplies for wheat for consumers and exports than had been thought.
Indeed, the outlook for EU wheat prices was "essentially bullish", Strategie Grains said, while warning that "several bear factors could come into play", including a potential uptick in Ukrainian shipments and the slowdown in China's economy long feared on commodities markets.
