In its latest forecast, the European Commission has dropped its expectation for the 2015 corn crop, harvesting of which is nearly complete, by 1 million to 57.4 million tons.
Excepts a 6% lower acreage, the hot and dry summer is basically responsible for the downward revision. As such, the 2015 crop looks set to fall a good 20 million tons or 26% short of last year's record crop.
The fall is particularly pronounced in France, where 5 million tons less corn than in 2014 is expected to be harvested, says Commerzbank. The lower production indicates that higher imports are necessary. Having said that, more wheat is likely to be used as feed instead of corn following another bumper wheat crop.
The stocks were significantly topped up in the 2014/15 season. At 11 million tons, the European Commission's current import expectation deviates noticeably from the figure of 16 million tons predicted by the US Department of Agriculture.
