3.1 Overview 

Chapter 1 has focused on large climate anomalies that sometimes reach the size of continents and beyond. The present section offers a closer look at individual countries, including the 42 countries that together produce and commercialize 80 percent of maize, rice, wheat, and soybean. As evidenced by the data in this section, even countries of minor agricultural or geopolitical relevance are exposed to extreme conditions and deserve mentioning, particularly when they logically fit into larger patterns. 

1. Introduction 

The global agro-climatic patterns that emerge at the MRU level (chapter 1) are reflected with greater spatial detail at the national and sub-national administrative levels described in this chapter. The “core countries”, including major producing and exporting countries are all the object of a specific and detailed narrative in the later sections of this chapter, while China is covered in Chapter 4. Sub-national units and national agro- ecological zones receive due attention in this chapter as well. 

In many cases, the situations listed below are also mentioned in the section on disasters (chapter 5.2) although extreme events tend to be limited spatially, so that the statistical abnormality is not necessarily reflected in the climate statistics that include larger areas. No attempts are normally made, in this chapter, to identify global patterns that were already covered in Chapter 1. The focus is on 166 individual countries and sometimes their subdivisions for the largest ones. Some of them are relatively minor agricultural producers at the global scale, but their national production is nevertheless crucial for their population, and conditions may be more extreme than among the large producers. 

2. Overview of weather conditions in major agricultural exporting countries 

This section provides a short overview of prevailing conditions of maize, rice, wheat and soybeans in a group of just 20 countries, conventionally taken as the major exporters, with each of them exporting at least one million tons of the covered commodities. They include the top 10 exporters in the world, with the United States and Argentina exporting all four crops, and Brazil, Ukraine and Russia exporting three of them each. 

Maize: Maize exports are dominated by just 4 countries: USA, Brazil, Argentina and the Ukraine. Together, they supply almost 90% of the maize being traded internationally. During this monitoring period, maize planting had started in late September in southern Brazil. Conditions were generally on the dry side, due to the onset of La Niña conditions, which may further constrain production in southern Brazil and Argentina. In the USA, the largest exporter, conditions were generally favorable. The maize crops benefitted from favorable conditions in the spring and early summer. Good rainfall until July provided enough of a buffer to compensate for the drier conditions that followed, especially in September. The drier-than-usual conditions actually helped harvest activities. A powerful storm, called Derecho, had hit Iowa on August 10, 2020. It flattened about half of Iowa's maize fields and 10% of the maize in that state could not get harvested. However, this is just a minor dent in the total US maize production and close-to-record yields are expected. Maize in the Ukraine, on the other hand, suffered from severe drought conditions, causing considerable yield losses. In Africa, most of the maize is consumed locally. Sufficient rains created generally favorable conditions, in the Horn of Africa, as well as in West Africa.  In China, summer rains were above normal, causing a generally favorable environment for maize production. However, several typhoons and tropical depressions created excessive rainfall and flooding in some areas, especially in the Heilongjiang province, causing yield losses. 

Rice: Four out of the 5 top rice exporting countries are located in South and Southeast Asia: India supplies about 1/3 of the rice that is internationally traded, followed by Thailand with 1/5. The USA, number 3, supplies less than 10%. Vietnam contributes about 7% and Pakistan close to 6%. 

Southeast Asia, with a combined market share of slightly more than 25%, was suffering from a prolonged drought until the onset of the monsoon rains. This caused some delays in planting. The Mekong delta region had not fully recovered from the low water levels of the Mekong River and production during this monsoon season remained below average. In addition, Central Vietnam was hit by several typhoons right after rice harvest. In Thailand, overall conditions returned to close to normal and an average production was estimated. In India, as well as in Pakistan, conditions for rice production were favorable and above-average production is expected.

Wheat: Wheat production in the southern hemisphere experienced generally favorable conditions. Australia had recovered from a severe drought and the wheat fields in Queensland and southern Australia received sufficient rainfall. Similarly, conditions were favorable in the Cape province of South Africa and in southern Brazil. However, wheat in the Pampas in Argentina suffered from a rainfall deficit. Winter wheat in the northern hemisphere was generally harvested by July and was reported on in the August CropWatch bulletin. Conditions for spring wheat in the northern states of the USA and in Canada were favorable. Spring wheat in Russia generally benefitted from above-average precipitation in the Volga, Southern Caucasus and Siberian production regions. Similarly, conditions were quite favorable in Kazakhstan. Hence, favorable spring wheat production will more than compensate for the winter wheat yield losses caused by droughts in France, Germany, Romania and the Ukraine. Wheat supply is likely to surpass last year's level. 

Soybean: Similar to maize, the soybean market is dominated by few countries: Brazil, the USA and Argentina account for more than 80% of total production. Brazil's share is more than half of the soybean traded on the international market, followed by the USA (30%), Argentina (5%), Paraguay (4%) and Canada (3%). Soybean planting for the coming growing season was off to a slow start in Brazil, due to prolonged winter drought conditions. Southern Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay may continue to be negatively impacted by La Niña in the coming months, which tends to cause drought conditions in that region. Soybean production in the USA and Canada benefitted from generally favorable conditions persisting throughout the entire production cycle from sowing to harvest. In China, the province of Heilongjiang, the most important soybean production province of the country, was negatively impacted by excessive rainfall and flood events caused by typhoons.

3. Weather anomalies and biomass production potential changes 

3.1 Rainfall

Rainfall anomalies depict the average departure of rainfall from the 15YA. They do not show short term water deficits. Nevertheless, they indicate where rainfall was generally favorable or not for crop production. Fig 3.1 shows that the Western USA was impacted by severe drought conditions, which led to massive forest fires in California, Oregon and Colorado. This was the dry season for the Maghreb and the Levant. Nevertheless, drier-than-normal conditions persisted in these regions. The Caucasus and Western Volga region of Russia also received below-average rainfall. Positive departures were observed for eastern Siberia, most of China and the wheat production regions in South-East Australia.

3.2 Temperatures

Warmer-than-average temperatures were observed for most of Brazil and the Western USA. Eastern Europe, including the Ukraine also experienced above-average temperatures, which deviated by more than 1.5ºC from the 15YA. Large negative departures were observed for the Hindukush region.

3.3 Solar radiation

Most of the Americas experienced average or above-average solar radiation. Only the South-East of the USA, which also received above-average rainfall due to several hurricanes, experienced below-average solar radiation. Northern Europe and northwestern Russia and most of Asia from Iran to Japan experienced below-average solar radiation. The only exception was the Gangetic Plain and Central India, which received above-average solar radiation, i.e., a positive departure by more than 3% from the 15YA. Turkey and the northern Caucasus region, which had suffered from below-average rainfall, also experienced more sunshine than usual.

3.4 Biomass production

Biomass production estimates are the product of rainfall, temperature and solar radiation. They integrate the three indicators discussed above. Positive departures by more than 5% were calculated for the wheat production regions in Brazil, as well as for the northern Pampas and Chaco region in Argentina. The corn belt in the USA and the North-East also had positive departures. The other key food production regions that experienced large positive departures were the north-west and central part of India and Victoria in Australia. Key production regions that were negatively impacted were California, the Middle East and Korea. 

Figure 3.1 National and subnational rainfall anomaly (as indicated by the RAIN indicator) of July to October 2020 total relative to the 2005-2019 average (15YA), in percent

Figure 3.2 National and subnational temperature anomaly (as indicated by the TEMP indicator) of July to October 2020 average relative to the 2005-2019 average (15YA), in °C

Figure 3.3 National and subnational sunshine anomaly (as indicated by the RADPAR indicator) of July to October 2020 total relative to the 2005-2019 average (15YA), in percent

Figure 3.4 National and subnational biomass production potential anomaly (as indicated by the BIOMSS indicator) of July to October 2020 total relative to the 2005-2019 average (15YA), in percent