Serbia’s 2011 wheat harvest rose 28.4 percent to 2.093 million metric tons, mostly due to better weather, the state statistics office said.
The total beat the office’s own June 20 estimate when it said it expected a 15.1 percent increase to 1.88 million tons. Average yield rose to 4.25 tons per hectare this season from 3.37 tons per hectare in 2010, the statistics office said. The crop was harvested from 492,989 hectares, less than one percent increase from a year ago, according to the report.
“With harvest like this, Serbia should be able to export some 500,000 tons of wheat” until the next season, said Vukosav Sakovic, the head of Zita Srbije, the national association of wheat exporters and producers.
The estimate is based on expected local annual consumption of 1.6 million tons and the current wheat reserves of about 100,000 tons, he said in a phone interview after the numbers were released.
Wheat and other grains, mainly corn, generate around 5 percent of Serbia’s annual exports, while the whole agricultural industry accounts for 11 percent of the nation’s economy. Serbia had a three-month ban on wheat exports earlier this year when a surge in demand abroad threatened to drain domestic supplies.
Corn production may decline 4.4 percent this year to 6.89 million tons, the statistic’s office also said in the report, pending final results for the crop next month.
The soy bean harvest is seen falling 13.6 percent from a year ago and sugar beets production may decline 19.2 percent, while sunflower seeds harvest will increase 12.8 percent to 4.27 million tons.
Source bloomberg.com
