Crop Areas for 2013

By late January most years, the trade has a relatively clear idea of what has been planted to winter crops and therefore what land remains undrilled for spring crops.  Knowing what spring seeds have been ordered then provides an idea of what spring crops areas, and so the total picture can be reasonably estimated.  This year, that is not the case.  For example, the difference in most years between the highest and the lowest estimates for winter wheat is about 50,000 hectares.  This represents approaching half a million tonnes of wheat – so is a substantial difference.  This year, however, forecasts range by over 350,000 hectares, equating (in a normal year) to about 2½ million tonnes of wheat.  Clearly, we all recognise yields will be low this year, but the uncertainty in the market about what has even been drilled and what will remain in the ground is stark.

For the record, here is our summarised forecast of crop-areas. It is an assessment at this stage of what we expect to be harvested (or registered as cropped land in June).  The crop categories include both winter and spring plantings.   We also have registered rises in fallow land, grassland and other very late drilled spring crops.  We are yet to start thinking too seriously about crop yields, but using our total wheat area figure and the wheat yield of 6.7 tonnes per Ha achieved in 2012 (most now believe the figure will be lower), this would result in a total wheat crop in the region of 11.1 million tonnes.  The range of forecast wheat areas that has come to our attention gives a total wheat crop, using the 2012 yield of 6.7t per Ha from sub-10 million to just 12 million tonnes.

We will almost certainly be net importers in 2013/14 again (as we were in 2012/13 and 2001/02), becoming the second year on the trot.  Curiously, DEFRA keeps track of UK supply and demand by calendar year rather than by crop year.  Using the calendar year, the UK has not, in recent times been a net wheat importing country.  Whilst December trade data is not available for another fortnight, it looks exceptionally close but it is likely that for 2012 the UK was a net wheat importing country, albeit by about 190,000 tonnes. It is looking like 2013, will be a year when imports are substantially greater than exports as our projection below shows. This will be especially true if it is assumed the two bioethanol plants on the East coast of England reach full capacity by then.