Private group Australian Crop Forecasters (ACF) has added its voice to a growing number of organisations that have issued predictions of a solid Australian wheat crop for the 2006/07 season.
Indications were for a crop of 22.5 million tonnes, down 10 percent from a revised 25.1 million tonnes in the last growing year to March 31, 2005, the forecasting firm told Reuters on Friday.
"If some of the La Nina predictions eventuate and we have slightly wetter conditions over 2006, then the crop could be closer to 25 million tonnes," Ron Storey, head of ACF, said. AFC's forecast was 6-8 percent lower than other forecasts.
The government's Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics has issued a forecast of 24.55 million tonnes while the United States agricultural attached in Canberra, representing the United States Department of Agriculture, has forecast a crop of 24.0 million tonnes.
The United States has taking particular interest in the swelling Australian wheat crop, as the two countries, the biggest wheat exporters in the world, battle for sales, particularly in Iraq. Farmers are beginning to look to the skies for good planting rains, which will allow them to sow in late April and in May.
Despite a dry second half of March, weather has been much kinder to Australia's winter crops this year than last, as conditions return closer to normal after a drought that delayed planting of the 2005 wheat crop.
Storey points out that farmers still need good planting rain in late April and May to set up the crop.
A crop of 24 million tonnes would be only slightly behind last season's crop, Australia's second biggest ever after a record 26.1 million tonnes in 2003/04.
The US agricultural attached pointed out this week that seven of the past 10 Australian wheat crops have fallen within the range of 22 million to 26 million tonnes. Generous rainfall triggered by a La Nina weather event would set up a large-sized crop, analysts say.
However, lingering signs of La Nina are fading slightly, the Bureau of Meteorology says. La Nina weather effects are the opposite of El Ninos and typically create wet weather in eastern Australia.
A spokesman for monopoly wheat exporter AWB declined comment on speculation by Chicago futures traders that Australia would win more sales to India, after the order for 500,000 tonnes in March.
Traders say that India is looking for 1.5 million to 2 million tonnes of imports to bridge a shortfall in supplies.
Wheat Australia, a new group formed to export Australian wheat to Iraq after Baghdad suspended business with AWB Ltd, said on Friday it was still negotiating a sale of 500,000 tonnes with the Iraqi Grain Board.
"Discussions are progressing well but we're still a little off being able to confirm a conclusion," a spokesman for Western Australian group Co-operative Bulk Handling, a member of Wheat Australia, said.
The Iraqi Grain Board has suspended dealings with Australia's monopoly wheat exporter AWB while a government inquiry looks into allegations that it paid up to $222 million in kickbacks to the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
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