Exportable Surplus, What Exportable Surplus?


Defra have not so much moved the goalposts halfway through the game as set them on fire with the release yesterday of their
June Census figures pegging the English wheat area at 1.79 million hectares. An increase of only 98 thousand hectares (5.8%) on 2009.

Yet in March they told us that the UK planted wheat area was up 11.4%. It sad that it takes us until halfway through harvest to find out what was planted almost twelve months ago but there we have it.

With wheat yields being widely touted as down around 10% this year, and if Defra are right, then that would potentially leave us with an English wheat crop of only around 12.7 MMT this year.

Throw in a contribution of say 850,000 MT for the rest of the UK and talk of a domestic crop of 15 MMT+ is suddenly looking extremely unlikely.

Discuss.