By Peter Hobson
CANBERRA (Reuters) – Wetter weather should boost Australia’s production of winter crops including wheat, barley and canola to 51 million metric tons in 2024/25 from 46.7 million tons in the current season, an agriculture ministry official said on Tuesday.
Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat and other farm products and greater output next year will increase global supply.
The 2023/24 winter crops harvested in recent months were hit early in the growing season by an El Nino weather event that brought with it dry conditions. But summer rains in recent months and a fading El Nino have improved the outlook.
“Good soil moisture bodes well,” Emily Dahl, an economist in the agriculture ministry’s forecasting division, told the ABARES Outlook 2024 conference in Canberra.
The area planted to winter crops should increase in 2024/25, particularly in Queensland and New South Wales, which were dry for much of 2023, she said, adding that exports in the 2024/25 season would also be above the long term average.
Some weather models are predicting that El Nino will not only fade but shift later this year back to a La Nina phenomenon, which typically brings wetter conditions to Australia.
Dahl said this could lift Australian yields further. “There’s certainly a lot of upside potential,” she said.
Winter crops in Australia are planted from around April and harvested from around October.
The agriculture ministry said on Tuesday that Australia’s 2023/24 winter crop included 26 million tons of wheat, 10.8 million tons of barley and 5.7 million tons of canola.
Total winter crop production was in line with the 10-year average but down 32% from 2022/23, a La Nina year that saw plentiful rain.
(Reporting by Peter Hobson; Editing by Michael Perry)
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