A continued heatwave and dry weather in most of northern and central Europe in the past month has hurt crops, prompting the European Union's crop monitoring service, MARS, to further cut yield forecasts for winter and spring harvests.
In a monthly crop report released on Monday, MARS cut its sugar beet yield forecast more than 5 percent from July's estimate after scorching weather parched farmland across northern Europe, the largest growing region.
The likely drop in output comes as EU producers are facing a slump in sugar prices linked to big global surpluses just after raising supply to profit from the ending of EU quotas a year ago.
The crop monitoring unit pegged this year's sugar beet yield in the 28-member bloc at 73.8 tonnes per hectare, down from the 77.9 t/ha estimated last month. The new forecast is 9 percent below last year's yield and now below the 5-year average of 74.6 t/ha.
Beet crops were hurt most in Denmark and in the bloc's second-largest producer Germany, which were both severely hit by this summer's hot spell. Germany's sugar beet yield is now expected at 71.7 t/ha, 5 percent below the 5-year average, data showed.
MARS also cut its forecast for the EU 2018 grain maize yield to 7.57 tonnes per hectare (t/ha) from the 7.64 t/ha seen last month despite good performance for maize in southern Europe that partly offset damage further north.
Analysts had estimated that favourable prospects for maize in the bloc's southerly regions could help offset losses from the prolonged drought and heatwaves in the north. "The yield forecast for grain maize was revised slightly downwards at EU level but remains above the 5-year average," MARS said.
Comments
Comments are closed.