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OverviewMain producing and exporting countries

Authors: 超级管理员 | Edit: xingqiang

Chapter 3. Production and crop condition of key countries

Following information on global environmental indices (chapter 1)and indicators of farming intensity and stress (chapter 2), chapter 3 presentsCropWatch assessments for thirty individual countries, from Argentina (ARG) toSouth Africa (ZAF). For each, CropWatch analyses include a comprehensive arrayof variables and indicators. Section 3.1 summarizes—as faras possible—the global production outlook based on these country assessments,while section3.2 presents details and analysis for each of the countries.Additional information is presented in Annex A, includingenvironmental indices by country (table A.3) and indices for major regionswithin some of the larger countries (tables A.5 through A.12, covering Argentina,Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Kazakhstan, Russia, and the United States.For each of those countries, only major producing areas are listed.

3.1 Production outlook

As implicitly mentioned in previous sections, this CropWatchbulletin is very much "between seasons:” the harvest of winter crops(wheat) was completed in the southern hemisphere, while summer crops arecurrently growing, with several months left before the time of harvest. In thenorthern hemisphere, winter crops have been planted before or up to thebeginning of the reporting period; they are currently dormant at the higherlatitudes and actively growing in the southernmost areas. Summer crops will beplanted in a couple of months in the cooler climates.

This must be kept in mind when comparing and interpretingthe data in table 3.1, which summarizes environmental indices and cropindicators for the countries, listing departures from the recent twelve-yearaverage (environmental indices) and five-year average (crop indicators).

It is interesting to highlight the extreme values listed inthe table. Rainfall shortage, for instance, was largest in Australia (-27percent), followed by Ukraine (-25 percent), and Poland (-16 percent), ignoringEgypt where all crops are irrigated. The largest positive departures occur inmostly semi-arid countries, where the availability of additional water isdefinitely going to improve crop prospects, for instance in Uzbekistan (+72percent), Mexico (+48 percent), Iran and Pakistan (+42 percent), and India (+52percent), which, however, is much less arid than the other listed countries. Lookingat the global spatial patterns of the environmental indicators (figures A.1 toA.3), it becomes obvious that the extremes stressed in this subset of thirtycountries do in fact quite naturally occur in adjacent areas as well; the mostextreme conditions do not even necessarily occur in the thirty countriesexamined here.

Cold spells affected North America (United States -1.0°C,Canada -1.3°C) and part of Southeast Asia (Thailand, -1.0°C), while largeexpanses of Eurasia, from Siberia and Russia (+1.7°C) to Germany (+1.2°C),enjoyed above average temperatures compared to the twelve-year average.Argentina (+1°C) is also mentioned here, as the country experienced droughtearly in the growing season of summer crops. Whether the high temperatures inEurasia will eventually result in improved winter crop output is open todebate, as the direct and indirect effects need to be evaluated against theweather of the period between February and the time of harvest.

Table 3.1. Environmental and cropindices for October 2013 to January 2014, departure from 5YA and 12YA

 

Rainfall total (%)

Temperature average
(°C)

PAR accumulation
 (%)

Biomass accumulation (%)

Uncropped arable land in % of pixels (Absolute difference in % points)

Maximum VCI (absolute difference)

Argentina

5

1.0

0.1

-1

0.7

-0.05

Australia

-27

0.3

3

3

9.2

0.01

Bangladesh

11

-0.5

-0.5

33

-0.2

0.06

Brazil

-1

0.2

-0.4

2

-0.4

0.01

Cambodia

5

-0.8

5

8

0.5

-0.01

Canada

8

-1.3

6

-2

10.7

0.01

China

19

0.5

8

21

-3.3

0.03

Egypt

-24

0.2

3

26

-1.0

0.05

Ethiopia

28

0.3

0.2

16

-4.3

0.01

France

-3

0.8

0.1

4

-2.0

0.07

Germany

5

1.2

-0.4

8

-10.7

0.11

India

52

-0.3

1

33

-3.0

0.11

Indonesia

-2

-0.2

-2

-2

0.4

-0.01

Iran

42

-0.4

2

19

-2.8

0.06

Kazakhstan

25

2.0

4

17

-1.9

0.23

Mexico

48

-0.1

-3

31

-4.3

0.04

Myanmar

27

-0.2

2

4

-4.8

0.01

Nigeria

23

0.3

6

9

1.6

-0.01

Pakistan

42

-0.1

3

14

-3.5

0.04

Philippines

11

-0.3

-4

-0.2

-0.4

0.00

Poland

-16

1.2

4

-7

-24.2

0.09

Romania

-8

1.2

2

-6

-12.5

0.10

Russia

-1

1.7

4

6

11.8

0.12

South Africa

-3

0.0

3

0.0

3.0

-0.03

Thailand

13

-1.0

5

6

0.6

0.02

Turkey

-6

-0.2

7

-9

18.9

-0.03

United Kingdom

42

0.7

1

10

-3.0

0.09

Ukraine

-25

0.7

-1

-11

-30.5

0.04

United States

-4

-1.4

3

-2

5.9

0.05

Uzbekistan

72

0.5

4

52

-8.6

0.01

Vietnam

-1

-0.6

1

-7

-1.5

-0.01

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Satellite derived PAR is less variable than rainfall ortemperature and no large extreme values occur. Nevertheless, high departuresoccurred in China, Canada, Turkey, and Nigeria (between +6 and +8 percent). Lowsunshine in Mexico (-3 percent) and in the Philippines (-4 percent) isassociated with abundant precipitation. In Mexico, water is a major limitingfactor in many areas and the benefits of abundant rain will outweigh thenegative effect of reduced PAR, while in the Philippines, the large impact ofHaiyan combined with low sunshine is bound to result in production loss.

Biomass departures from the reference values (figure 3.1) canresult from either higher than normal temperatures or higher than normalrainfall. The relative contribution of rainfall is most marked in warm,semi-arid climates; this is the case in Mexico (+31 percent), India (+33percent), and Uzbekistan (+52 percent). The effect of temperature is dominantin areas where rainfall is normally not limiting, or in irrigated areas, suchas China (+21 percent). The largest decreases occur in countries that werealready mentioned for their poor performance in terms of rainfall (Poland with-7 percent and Romania with -6 percent). Two countries combine a relativelymild drought with below average temperature: Turkey (-9 percent) and Vietnam(-7 percent).

One of them (Turkey) also displays the largest uncroppedarable land (UAL) value (+18.9 percent) indicating a dramatic increase inuncropped land. Although the mechanism is difficult to assess with theavailable data, the detailed national analysis in section 3.2 clearly identifies themost affected areas, based on the biomass map and VHI profiles. Other large UALdepartures occur in Canada and the United States because of the cold spell, andin Russia (+11.8 percent), where the increase is more difficult to interpret.It is, however, confirmed by national sources.

Maximum VCI departures are consistent with the environmentalindices in most instances, starting with Kazakhstan (+0.23, due to a favorablecombination of rainfall (+25 percent) and temperature (+2.0°C)), followed bymost of the Eurasian countries that experienced a "warm spell," forexample +0.12 in Russia and +0.11 in Germany. The largest negative departuresfor VCI are reported for Argentina (-0.5) and South Africa (-0.3). See alsofigure 3.2.

Figure 3.1. Global map of biomassaccumulation by country and sub-national areas, departure from twelve-yearaverage (2001-13) average (percentage)

Figure 3.2. Global map of maximumVCI by country and sub-national areas

Argentina is one of the countries where CropWatch hasestimated wheat yield and production, alongside with other major wheatproducers of the southern hemisphere: Brazil and Australia (table 3.2). Allcountries underwent significant production increases in the range from about 15percent (Argentina, Australia) to 30 percent (Brazil). The production drop inSouth Africa is the continuation of a trend, mostly due to the fact that wheatis less profitable than other crops.  

Table 3.2. CropWatch estimates of2013 wheat production in the southern hemisphere (Australia, Brazil, and Argentina),together with South-African production data (x1000 tons)

 

Wheat

Yield

Δ%

Area

Δ%

Production

Δ%

Argentina

2.82

8.9

3321

5.1

9356

14.1

Australia

1.96

11.3

13335

4.3

26181

16.5

Brazil

2.60

12.3

2212

16.9

5750

31.3

South Africa (*)

 

 

 

 

1750

-6

3.2 National crop condition

On the subsequent pages, results are presented for each ofthe thirty key countries. For each, CropWatch results include information—maps,graphs, and text—on crop condition, covering maximum vegetation condition index(VCI), NDVI, and biomass. The maps refer to crop growing areas only, exceptbiomass maps, which are given for the whole country to not exclude rangeland,which is important in the economy of livestock producers on all continents.

Information for each country is presented as follow: (a)Maximum VCI (over arable land mask) for October 1 2013-January 30 2014 by pixel;(b) Spatial NDVI patterns for October 2013- January 2014 (compared to the 5YA);(c) NDVI profiles associated with the spatial pattern under (b); (d) Biomassfor the period October 1 2013 – January 30 2014 compared to the 5YA, differenceexpressed in absolute values (gDM/m2); and (e) Crop conditiondevelopment graph based on NDVI, comparing the latest season (since October 2013)to the five-year average (5YA), the five-year maximum, and the October2012-September 2013 period. Note that biomass in these graphs is based intemperature and rainfall and expresses to what extent rainfall and temperaturewere conducive to biomass development (see also CropWatch onlineresources on methodology.)

As mentioned before, additional resources for the countriesare available in Annex A,tables A.3 and A.5-A.12,as well as online at www.cropwatch.com.cn,where brief agricultural profiles for each country are posted (visit onlineresources: Country profiles).