Canberra | Reuters — Western Australia should produce 420,000 tonnes more wheat this year than was projected a month ago, an industry group said Friday, adding to expectations that Australia’s national crop will be larger than pre-harvest estimates.
Analysts in Australia had already added around 1 million tonnes to their nationwide production estimates after early harvest results showed very high yields in the eastern state of New South Wales.
Early harvests in Western Australia are now also showing high yields in all crops, said the Grain Industry Association of Western Australia (GIWA).
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Western Australia and New South Wales are the country’s two biggest cropping zones.
Australia is the world’s fourth-biggest wheat exporter. Benchmark Chicago wheat futures are near four-year lows due to plentiful supply but many traders expect the market to tighten in the coming months.
The GIWA wrote in a monthly report that Western Australia should harvest 10.33 million tonnes of wheat, 4.52 million tonnes of barley and 2.59 million tonnes of canola this year.
Those figures compare with predictions issued last month of 9.91 million tonnes of wheat, 4.32 million tonnes of barley and 2.36 million tonnes of canola.
“Grain yields have been higher than expected so far for all crops in most areas,” GIWA said.
Western Australia’s total grain and oilseed crop will be the third-largest on record despite below average rainfall in most areas, it added.
“This will be remarkable considering the (dry) start of the season and below average rainfall for all regions other than the northern agricultural zones.”
GIWA said harvesting had been slowed over the last week by widespread rain that will have reduced grain quality in some areas.
The most recent government estimate is for Australia to produce 31.8 million tonnes of wheat in the current 2024/25 season, around 20 per cent more than both the 2023/24 total and the average over the last ten years.
The harvest could have been bigger if not for dry conditions in South Australia and Victoria that have limited yields.
