The inter-governmental body, in a monthly update, increased its forecast by 2 million metric tons to 808 million.

India’s wheat crop was projected to climb to 117.5 million tons, up from a previous forecast of 115.1 million and the prior season’s 113.3 million.

The projection is in line with a forecast issued by India’s government in late May.

Romania’s wheat crop forecast was increased to 12.5 million tons, up from last month’s projection of 11.5 million and well above last season’s 10.1 million.

Agricultural consultancy Sovecon said on Wednesday it had slightly raised its forecast for Russian wheat production for 2025 by 0.2 million metric tons to 83.0 million metric tons, citing improved crop conditions in parts of central Russia.

The IGC also trimmed its forecast for 2025/26 global corn production by 1 million tons to 1.276 billion tons, with Ukraine’s crop downgraded to 28.6 million tons from a previous forecast of 30 million.

The body’s forecast for global soybean production was kept at 428 million tons, up from last season’s 423 million.

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Why it matters: While Canadian poultry farmers have been plagued by bird flu, transmission to other types of animals increases the risk of the disease becoming more widespread

Many different mammals have died of the H5N1 bird flu virus across the globe including bears, cats, dairy cows, dogs, dolphins, seals and tigers.

“The case was identified following routine surveillance of farmed livestock on a premises in Yorkshire where highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) had been confirmed in other captive birds,” Britain’s government said in a statement.

There have been cases among humans which have ranged in severity from no symptoms to, in rare cases, death. But there has not yet been any confirmed transmission between humans.

The sheep that tested positive was a ewe with signs of mastitis, an inflammation of mammary tissue, and no other clinical signs, the statement from the British government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Animal and Plant Health Agency said.

Ed Hutchinson, professor of molecular and cellular virology, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, said the fact that the sheep’s milk also tested positive suggested parallels with the ongoing H5N1 outbreak among dairy cows in the United States.

Bird flu has spread among U.S. dairy cattle since March 2024.

He added, however, at the moment there was no evidence of ongoing transmission from the sheep and the case appeared to have been contained.

The ewe was culled and no further infection was found in the rest of the flock.

Britain’s rural affairs ministry has introduced surveillance of livestock on premises where bird flu has been confirmed in captive birds following the outbreaks among dairy cows in the United States.

“Globally, we continue to see that mammals can be infected with avian influenza (H5N1),” Dr Meera Chand, emerging infection lead at the UK Health Security Agency, said.

“However, current evidence suggests that the avian influenza viruses we’re seeing circulating around the world do not spread easily to people – and the risk of avian flu to the general public remains very low.”

— Reporting by Nigel Hunt and Sarah Young

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The inter-governmental body, in a monthly update, trimmed its global corn crop forecast by six million tonnes to 1.219 billion tonnes.

The U.S. corn crop was revised down to 377.6 million tonnes from 384.6 million seen previously, bringing it into line with the current U.S. government estimate.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Jan. 10 cut its forecast for the 2024 U.S. corn harvest to 377.6 million tonnes following a dry end to the nation’s growing season.

The IGC kept its 2024/25 world wheat crop outlook at 796 million tonnes, with a downward revision for Russia (81.3 million from 81.8 million) offset by an upward adjustment for Australia (31.9 million from 31.3 million).

Wheat production in the 2025/26 season was seen tentatively rising to a record 805 million tonnes, up one per cent year-on-year, based on information on sown areas and weather.

“With supply seen expanding only fractionally, projected gains in consumption could result in a further drawdown in end-season stocks,” the IGC said.

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Below are details on the probe into EU dairy imports and other industries which are under investigation.

Dairy

The anti-subsidy investigation on dairy announced by China’s commerce ministry on Wednesday will focus on various types of cheeses, milks and creams intended for human consumption.

It was prompted by a complaint submitted by the Dairy Association of China and the China Dairy Industry Association on July 29 on behalf of the domestic dairy industry.

China will examine 20 subsidy schemes from across the 27-strong bloc, specifically those from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Ireland, and Romania, it said in a statement.

The EU was China’s second-largest source of dairy products with at least 36 per cent of the total value of imports in 2023, behind only New Zealand, according to Chinese customs data.

The EU exported 1.7 billion euros ($1.84 billion) in dairy products to China in 2023, down from 2 billion in 2022, according to European Commission data.

Pork

The anti-dumping investigation announced in June by China’s commerce ministry is focusing on pork intended for human consumption, such as fresh, cold and frozen whole cuts, as well as pig intestines, bladders and stomachs.

It was prompted by a complaint submitted by the China Animal Husbandry Association on behalf of the domestic pork industry, the ministry said.

Pork suppliers from South America, the U.S. and Russia could be among those gaining market share if Beijing restricts imports from the European Union.

The EU accounts for more than half the roughly $6 billion (C$8.1 billion) worth of pork China imported in 2023, according to customs data, around a quarter of which was from Spain alone.

Second- and third-ranking, the Netherlands and Denmark last year exported to China pork products worth $620 million (C$839 million) and $550 million (C$742 million) respectively.

Brandy

China’s commerce ministry said on Thursday it would not impose provisional tariffs on brandy imported from the European Union, despite finding it had been sold in China below market prices.

Beijing said in January it was looking into whether EU brandy makers were selling their product in the country at below-market rates, weighing on sentiment for cognac producers, especially for French companies such as Remy and Pernod.

The French cognac industry makes up almost all of China’s EU brandy imports. French producers said they suspected the probe was linked to a broader trade row rather than the liquor markets.

Plastic

In May, Beijing launched an anti-dumping probe into POM copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, imported from the EU, U.S., Japan and Taiwan.

—Reporting for Reuters by Mei Mei Chu in Beijing, Nigel Hunt in London, Ozan Ergenay and Alessandro Parodi in Gdansk.

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“During the planting time in April we had really hot weather,” he told the International Grains Council’s annual conference, adding it would lead to lower yields.

UGA estimates that corn production will fall to 25.5 million metric tons in 2024/25, down from the previous season’s 29.6 million with exports falling to 20.5 million from 26 million.

The IGC also currently forecast Ukraine’s corn exports at 20.5 million tons although its projection for production is slightly higher at 27.7 million tons.

Ukraine’s harvested a record corn crop of 42.13 million tons in 2021, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, just a month before Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

Gorbachov said Ukraine had lost six million hectares of agricultural land because of the conflict out of a total of 25 million hectares.

“Of course it is a huge impact,” he said.

USDA forecasts that area of corn harvested in Ukraine will fall to 3.8 million hectares in 2024/25, a 13-year low.

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Russia had threatened to quit the Black Sea agreement if a list of demands to overcome obstacles to its own grain and fertilizer exports was not met by May 18. The Kremlin said on Thursday it had extended the agreement because some results from talks had given it “certain hopes” but more progress needed to be made.

The U.N. and Turkey brokered the deal for an initial 120 days in July last year to help tackle a global food crisis that has been aggravated by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s leading grain exporters.

The deal had ground to a halt on Wednesday after the last authorized ship left a Ukrainian port.

Officials from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the U.N. make up a Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) in Istanbul, which implements the pact. They authorize and inspect ships. No new vessels had been authorized since May 4, which Ukraine blamed on Russia.

The JCC authorized three new vessels on Thursday to travel to the Ukrainian ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk, said deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq. A third port — Pivdennyi (Yuzhny) — is also covered by the Black Sea deal.

“While we welcome this partial resumption of inbound movement activity, we call on the parties to ensure that the authorization of new vessels is done for all three ports to make use of capacity and meet industry demands,” Haq told reporters.

Further talks

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday he hoped a comprehensive agreement could now be reached to improve, expand and extend the Black Sea export deal.

Haq said there could be a meeting of officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the U.N. on Friday or early next week, but the level of representation was still being discussed.

“Ultimately, it’s great news that the Black Sea grain deal has been renewed, avoiding the worst-case scenario of a cancellation,” Rabobank commodities analyst Paul Joules said.

“Given that Russia has repeatedly expressed its unhappiness with the deal, the extension came as a surprise to the market, and a result, wheat futures declined sharply following the announcement.”

Wheat prices on the Chicago Board of Trade fell nearly two per cent on Thursday to a two-week low of US$6.25-1/2 a bushel after sliding by more than three per cent on Wednesday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday called the extension “a qualified result” for Russia and said different scenarios were being worked on regarding easing restrictions on Russia’s state agricultural bank, a main demand of Moscow.

To convince Russia in July to allow Black Sea grain exports, the U.N. agreed at the same time to help Moscow with its own agricultural shipments for three years.

While Russian exports of food and fertilizer are not subject to Western sanctions imposed following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow says restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance have amounted to a barrier to shipments.

The United States has rejected Russia’s complaints.

The challenge of moving grain through Ukraine during the war was highlighted on Thursday by the suspension of rail traffic between Simferopol, capital of the Crimean peninsula, and Sevastopol, after a freight train carrying grain derailed. The derailment was caused by “interference by outsiders,” Crimean railways said in a statement.

— Reporting for Reuters by Nigel Hunt in London and Michelle Nichols at the U.N.

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Russia said on Saturday it was pulling out of the deal, which ensured safe passage of grain exports from three Ukrainian ports, after what it said was a major Ukrainian drone attack on its fleet in Crimea.

Other participants were pressing ahead with the deal despite Russia’s withdrawal while France said it was working to boost Ukraine grain exports via land routes in conjunction with other European Union states.

Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain exporters and the conflict with Russia led to the closure of its seaports in February, driving up food prices and contributing to a steep rise in acute hunger across the globe.

The deal, signed on July 22, has helped ease the crisis with more than 9.5 million tonnes of corn, wheat, sunflower products, barley, rapeseed and soy exported under the pact.

A record volume of 354,500 tonnes of agricultural products was carried on vessels leaving Ukrainian ports on Monday as part of the Black Sea grain deal, a spokesperson for Odesa’s military administration said.

“Civilian cargo ships can never be a military target or held hostage. The food must flow,” tweeted Amir Abdullah, the U.N. official who coordinates the programme.

Turkey, which helped broker the deal, remained committed to the deal which involves the inspection of cargoes at a Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul.

“Even if Russia behaves hesitantly because it didn’t receive the same benefits, we will continue decisively our efforts to serve humanity,” President Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech.

Russia said on Monday it would be risky for Ukraine to continue exporting.

“In conditions when Russia is talking about the impossibility of guaranteeing the safety of shipping in these areas, such a deal is hardly feasible, and it takes on a different character – much more risky, dangerous and unguaranteed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Wheat prices climb

Wheat prices Wv1 rose on Monday, climbing around 6 per cent to $8.78 a bushel in Chicago, but remained far below a peak of $13.63-1/2 set in early March shortly after the conflict began.

The strong pace of wheat exports from Russia, which harvested a record crop this summer, has helped to bolster supplies on the world market.

Consultancy Sovecon on Monday estimated that Russia would export 4.5 million tonnes of wheat in October, up from 2.8 million in the same month last year.

Corn prices Cv1 rose more than 2 per cent to $6.96 a bushel in Chicago on Monday while soybean oil BOv1 rose about 1.6 per cent to 72.96 cents per lb.

Ukraine is a major exporter of corn and there were concerns that shipments to the European Union could be disrupted.

“As far as Europe is concerned, corn is a bigger issue than wheat as we are getting into peak season for Ukrainian corn in November,” said one grain trader said.

Analysts warned that although global agricultural commodity prices have come off record highs in recent months, local retail food prices remain high and could now face further upside.

“Typically, it takes about two months for higher grain prices to filter through the supply chain and impact consumers at the retail level,” said a Sydney-based analyst.

“But food processors do not have much forward coverage, so it is likely to be a lot quicker.”

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It’s not a treat. They can either feed their crops to animals or let them spoil. And other farmers are doing just that — dumping truckloads of fresh grapes to rot on compost heaps.

The farmers cannot get their produce to consumers because of lockdowns that aim to stop the spread of coronavirus. In India, as in many parts of the world, restrictions on population movement are wreaking havoc on farming and food supply chains and raising concern of more widespread shortages and price spikes to come.

Across the globe, millions of labourers cannot get to the fields for harvesting and planting. There are too few truckers to keep goods moving. Air freight capacity for fresh produce has plummeted as planes are grounded. And there is a shortage of food containers for shipping because of a drop in voyages from China.

In Florida, a lack of Mexican migrant labourers means watermelon and blueberry growers face the prospect of rotting crops. Similar shortages of workers in Europe mean vegetable farms are missing the window to plant.

Such sprawling food production and distribution shocks illustrate the pandemic’s seemingly boundless capacity to suffocate economies worldwide and upend even the most essential business and consumer markets. There has been limited disruption so far to supplies of staple grains such as rice and wheat, although problems with planting and logistics are mounting.

Indian farmer Anil Salunkhe is feeding his strawberries to cows because the local tourists who usually eat them are gone, as are the fruit vendors who once worked the streets of the nearby metropolis of Mumbai.

“Nobody was willing to buy strawberries due to the lockdown,” Salunkhe told Reuters as he fed strawberries to a cow in Darewadi village, in Satara district.

He can’t even give his strawberries away: With stay-home orders in place, few villagers ventured out from their homes when he offered them the berries for free, he said.

In nearby Bhuinj village, Prabhakar Bhosale feeds lettuce to buffalo and lets villagers take more for their own cattle. The hotels and restaurants that normally buy lettuce are closed.

Migrant labourers stranded

The potential impact of planting and harvest disruptions is most acute in poorer countries with big populations, said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

India — the world’s second-most populous country, where a majority of the population is involved in agriculture — is among the most vulnerable nations to the disruptions.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a 21-day lockdown with just a few hours notice on March 25, leaving many of its 120 million migrant labourers struggling to get home and with no money for rent, food or transport.

The country’s northern grain bowl relies on labour from eastern parts of the country, but workers have left the farms because of the lockdown.

“Who is going to fill the grain bags and bring the produce to market, and transport it to mills?” asked Jadish Lal, a merchant in Punjab’s Khanna grain market, the country’s largest.

Supply problems in one place are quickly felt on the other side of the world. In Canada, imports of speciality Indian vegetables such as onions, okra, and eggplant have dropped by as much as 80 per cent in the past two weeks as air cargo space dwindled, said Clay Castelino, president of Ontario-based Orbit Brokers, which helps shipments clear customs.

Castelino figured the sharp decline meant the food had simply gone to waste: “With perishable food, once it’s gone, it’s gone,” he said.

Europe’s missing workers

Spain has a shortage of migrant workers from countries such as Morocco who cannot travel.

“In around 15 days time, the blueberry season will peak until mid-May,” said manager Francisco Sanchez, a manager at Spanish growers association Onubafruit. “We need a big concentration of labour then.”

In Italy, about 200,000 seasonal workers will be needed in the next two months. The government may have to ask people receiving state benefits to pick the fruit and vegetables, said Ivano Vacondio, head of Italy’s Food Association Federalimentare.

In France, Agriculture Minister Didier Guillaume has issued a rallying cry to what he called France’s “shadow army” of newly laid-off workers to replace the usual crews of migrant workers on the farms.

“If the call is not heard, the production will remain in the fields, and the entire sector will be damaged,” said Christiane Lambert, head of France’s largest farm union, FNSEA.

In Brazil — the world’s top exporter of soybeans, coffee, and sugar — farm lobby CNA said the industry faces a range of problems, including challenges hiring truck drivers to haul crops and a shortage of spare parts for farm equipment.

In Argentina, the world’s top exporter of soymeal, exports have been delayed as the government ramps up inspections of incoming cargo ships.

Land, sea and air

In addition to the trucking problems, a sharp decline in air traffic has cut deeply into capacity to move fresh produce long distances.

Andres Ocampo, chief executive of Miami fruit importer HLB Specialties, relied on commercial flights to shift papayas and other produce from Brazil to Florida. Now he is buying more from Mexico and Guatemala, where goods can still be shipped by trucks.

Ocampo says volumes of the company’s imports from Brazil have dropped by 80 per cent.

“In Europe, it’s even worse, because they don’t have a Mexico-like source for papayas,” he said.

U.S. and Canadian exporters are grappling with a shortage of refrigerated containers to supply goods, as voyages of container ships from China to the West Coast are down by a quarter due to reduced demand because of lockdowns.

“The containers are tough to get right now,” said Michael Dykes, president of the International Dairy Foods Association, a U.S.-based trade group. “If a company needs five containers, they’ll find they can get one.”

Port congestion is slowing shipments of pork and beef to destinations such as China because workers have been told to stay at home. That is exacerbating the shortage of protein supplies in China, where an outbreak of African swine fever has taken a quarter of the world’s pigs off the market in the past year and a half.

A different kind of crisis

The emerging supply-chain disruptions are much different than the food crises of 2007-08 and 2010-2012, when droughts in grain-producing nations caused shortages that led to higher prices, unrest and riots in several countries. Those price spikes were driven in part by state hoarding of rice and other staples.

Now, staple grain supplies are relatively plentiful and global prices have been low for years as farmers in the U.S., Brazil and in the Black Sea region have planted more and improved yields.

Although there are signs that big importers such as Iraq and Egypt are boosting grains purchases amid rising food security concerns, other countries are boosting exports. Second-largest rice exporter Thailand, for instance, is taking advantage of higher rice prices by increasing exports from stockpiles.

Top rice exporter India, however, has stopped rice exports due to labour shortages and logistics problems. Third-largest exporter Vietnam has also curbed exports.

African nations — where many people spend more than half of their income on food — are among the most vulnerable to disruptions in staple food supplies.

The continent is the fastest-growing consumer of rice, accounting for 35 per cent of global imports and 30 per cent of wheat imports. Sub-Saharan Africa alone is the third-largest rice consuming region, yet holds the smallest grain inventories — relative to demand — of all regions, because of tight government budgets and limited storage.

While the earlier food crises involved supply shocks, today the problem is getting plentiful supplies to the people who need it — many of whom have suddenly lost their income.

“It is a whole different animal,” the FAO’s Abbassian said. “You don’t have labour, you don’t have trucks to move the food, you don’t have money to buy the food.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Rajendra Jadhav, Naveen Thukral and Nigel Hunt; additional reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj in New Delhi, Veronica Brown and Jonathan Saul in London, Sonya Dowsett in Madrid, Libby George in Lagos, Phil Blenkinsop in Brussels, Stephen Jewkes in Milan, Gus Trompiz and Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris, Emma Farge in Geneva, Michael Hogan in Hamburg, Christopher Walljasper, Karl Plume, PJ Huffstutter and Tom Polansek in Chicago, Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Ana Mano in Sao Paulo.

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The European Union, the world’s second largest pork producer after China, has ramped up sales to the Asian giant although it can only fill part of the shortfall caused by ASF. Argentina and Brazil have approved new export plants to meet demand and are selling beef and chickens, as well as pork, to fill the gap. U.S. producers, however, have been hampered due to tariffs imposed by Beijing.

Other Asian countries are also ready to step up imports as they, too, deal with outbreaks of ASF. Vietnam, the Philippines, North and South Korea, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia are all struggling to contain outbreaks of the disease, which is deadly to pigs although not harmful to humans.

“It is very good news for those involved in processing and have licenses for exports to China,” said Justin Sherrard, global strategist, animal protein at Rabobank.

Major EU pork processors include Danish Crown, Tonnies Group and Vion Food Group although the market is fragmented with many small- and medium-size players.

Shortages in the world’s top pork consumer have been exacerbated by the upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations in late January, when pork, and pork dumplings in particular, play a central role in the food on offer.

One of the biggest European players Danish Crown said there had been a very clear jump in demand from China in the run-up to the Lunar New Year and it was bullish on the outlook for 2020.

China’s state-owned agriculture conglomerate COFCO said this week it had agreed to buy $100 million of pork from Danish Crown in 2020 to help ease the domestic shortage.

New plants approved in South America

Rabobank estimates that China’s hog herd, the world’s largest, fell by half in the first eight months of 2019 and will likely shrink by 55 percent by the end of the year.

Many more meat plants in Argentina and Brazil have recently been approved to export to China including beef and chicken as well as pork.

Nicholas Lafontaine, a cattle rancher from the town of Azul, 300 kilometres (186 miles) southwest of Buenos Aires, said China had traditionally taken cheap cuts with premium steaks destined for the EU.

China is now taking the whole carcass, reducing the amount of meat sold on the local market for Argentina peso, a currency which has lost around a third of its value this year.

As processing margins have improved, plants have reopened.

“The other benefit that comes from growing Chinese demand is the reopening of beef plants, he said, adding that when a factory opens its doors it is thinking about China.

Neighbouring Brazil has also benefited.

According to Brazilian meat trade groups, in one go Beijing authorized Brazil to more than double the number of beef plants with permits to sell directly to mainland China — to 33.

Brazil exported 1.64 million tonnes of beef in 2018 with China buying 19.3 percent of the volume, trailing only Hong Kong. The South American country’s exports have been forecast to rise to 1.8 million tonnes this year.

“China is the market paying the highest premiums for Brazilian meatpackers,” Luciano Pascon, chief executive of privately-owned meatpacker Frigol, told Reuters in an interview.

Trade war hits U.S. producers

Hefty tariffs on American pork imposed by China as part of the ongoing trade conflict are likely to mean that the U.S. industry will benefit less than its rivals.

U.S.-based meat packers such as Smithfield Foods have, however, been able to secure some direct sales. Tyson Foods expects to benefit from African swine fever by increasing sales to China or other countries as the outbreak redirects global meat trading.

Tyson Foods share price has risen about 50 percent so far this year.

Trent Thiele, a farmer who raises about 60,000 hogs a year in Elma, Iowa, said, however, the trade war is hurting American hog producers.

Thiele said he would prefer selling U.S. pork to Chinese buyers than picking up residual business elsewhere in the world because China is a main buyer of products such as pigs’ feet and organ meat that other countries have little appetite for.

“A lot of our other competitor countries are obtaining the market share that naturally would have been ours if we didn’t have the retaliatory tariffs,” said Thiele, president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association.

Astronomical

Imported pork ribs currently cost around 40,000 yuan ($5,680) per tonne, compared with 17,600 yuan in spring 2019, traders said, while prices for other cuts such as pig front leg and rib meat have roughly doubled in that period.

“Right now, prices are astronomical, and the risk is very high,” said a Beijing-based beef importer, who was struggling to gauge the right volumes to meet demand and avoid being left with expensive stock at the end of the holiday period.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Meat Price Index is up 12.5 percent so far this year and is at the highest level since January 2015.

The pork component has risen by more than 20 percent.

The high global pork prices are even sparking interest in pig farming in predominately Muslim Kazahkstan.

“Not a week goes by without someone visiting us who wants to get into pig farming,” said Maksut Baktibayev, chairman of Kazakhstan’s Meat Union, an industry lobby group.

($1 = 7.0428 Chinese yuan renminbi)

– Reporting Dominique Patton in Beijing, Ana Mano in Sao Paulo, Maximillian Heath in Buenos Aires, Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen, Michael Hogan in Hamburg, Olzhas Auyezov in Almaty, Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov in Tashkent and Tom Polansek in Chicago

The post China reshapes global meat markets as swine fever rages appeared first on Country Guide.

In its monthly update, the inter-governmental body cut its global wheat production projection by 2 million tonnes to 762 million tonnes.

The wheat crop in Australia was seen falling to 17.0 million tonnes, down from a previous forecast of 19.1 million and now below the prior season’s 17.3 million.

Australia, once the world’s fourth largest wheat exporter, is suffering from a third year of drought, resulting in a deep reduction in agriculture output.

Drought has also dented the outlook for Argentina’s wheat crop which was downwardly revised to 19.5 million tonnes, down from a previous forecast of 20.4 million.

The IGC also reduced its forecast for the global corn (maize) crop in 2019/20 by a marginal 1 million tonnes to 1.098 billion tonnes with a diminished outlook for Argentina partly offset by an upward revision for China.

Argentina’s corn crop was seen at 53.1 million tonnes, down from a previous forecast of 56.1 million and the prior season’s 57.0 million.

China’s corn production was, however, seen at 255.4 million, above its previous projection of 253.6 million but still below the prior season’s 257.3 million.

Global soybean production in 2019/20 was seen at 341 million tonnes, down from a previous forecast of 342 million and the prior season’s 359 million.

The IGC said a further downgrade to U.S. soybean crop prospects was only partially offset by increases for other producers, resulting a a 5% year-on-year contraction.

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