Strategie Grains Cuts EU Wheat Crop Estimate

French analysts Strategie Grains have cut their estimate for EU soft wheat production by 1.1 MMT from last month's estimate to 129.0 MMT. All wheat production in the EU-27 is now pegged at 137.1 MMT.

Average yields across Europe were left unchanged at 5.7 MT/ha. The fall in output comes from a lower planted area, dropped 100,000 hectares to 22.6 million ha.

The figures come a day after the French Ministry dropped it's estimate of soft wheat production there by almost 1 MMT to 36.6 MMT.

Now that the harvest is in, it would seem that we are not quite as awash with wheat as it seemed a couple of months ago.

At home in the UK, final wheat production is now seen at 13.9 MMT by the NFU, up to 14.2 MMT by Defra. Both numbers are significantly below mid-summer estimates of around 14.7 MMT.

In addition, despite nobody wanting the wheat that we are awash with, UK exports in the first two months of the marketing year were actually 42% higher than they were at the same time last year.