Germany may import up to one million tonnes of milling wheat in the coming year, its first major imports for a decade, after rain seriously damaged the country's harvest, the head of German flour mills association VDM said on Wednesday. Most of the imports are expected from France but more purchases of high quality grades are possible from the US, VDM chief executive Manfred Weizbauer told Reuters.
Germany, in most years the European Union's second-largest wheat exporter, will be unable to cover its requirements for milling quality grain for the first time in years after prolonged rain damaged the quality of the country's harvest this summer, Weizbauer said.
US traders said on Tuesday a German mill had bought 20,000 tonnes of high-quality US spring wheat. It was the first non-durum US wheat purchase by Germany since 2007 and the largest volume of milling wheat sold to the country in nearly a decade, according to US Agriculture Department export data. "This purchase would illustrate the problems that we have with the harvest in Germany this year, especially concerning quality," Weizbauer said.
Germany's wheat harvest began in July and in the last four weeks has suffered repeated rain, hitting grain at their most vulnerable stage just before cutting. German wheat prices rose on Monday to their highest in 28 months, on fears the harvest size and quality had been heavily damaged. Germany's woes added to a series of global wheat production problems.
World wheat prices surged to two-year highs in early August as drought devastated Russia's harvest and the country announced a sudden grain export ban. Heavy rains have also hit wheat in Canada and Pakistan. German traders had expected this year's poor harvest to cut the country's export surplus, not generate imports, but Weizbauer said the problem was more serious.
"We have come to the conclusion that we will not be able to get sufficient supplies of high quality wheat for bread making from this year's harvest in Germany," he said. "There are varying estimates of the shortfall from 500,000 tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes. I personally estimate the shortfall in the middle at around one million tonnes."
"I think the standard quality milling wheat supplies will be predominantly purchased in France. But higher qualities will be covered from other regions including imports from the US" Import sources would largely depend on the location of individual flour mills, with mills in seaports and with river or canal transport links most likely to turn to the US, he said.
Germany's wheat harvest is now about 90 percent complete but large areas remain unfinished in northern and eastern German regions, analysts said on Tuesday. Germany's winter wheat crop was likely to fall 9 percent on the year to 22.7 million tonnes, the German farmers' association forecast.
"Wheat gathered at the start of the harvest is generally satisfactory but the harvest in the weeks since then has a huge variation of quality with much only reaching animal feed standard," Weizbauer said. "We need about 8 million tonnes bread quality grains from the harvest this summer and approximately 1 million tonnes is lacking."
Some inter-European purchases were also likely from origins such as the Czech Republic and the Baltic States, he said. "The issue is about quality more than price. This year will be the first time in decades in which we will not be able to get our wheat supplies in sufficient quality from our own harvest."
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