Spainish Soft Wheat Acreage Down 11.7 Percent

Spain, typically the main export destination for UK wheat, has reduced it's winter plantings of soft wheat by 11.7% to 1.36m ha from 1.54m ha a year ago.

Total area given over to all grains is reduced by 7% to 5.7m ha (last year 6.1m), says the country's Agriculture Ministry.

Due to it's unpredictable climate grain production in Spain varies quite wildly, yielding anything from 14-24mmt in recent years. Even with a bumper crop in 2007/08 the country still needed to import 12mmt of grain.