Building on the global patterns presented in previous chapters, this chapter assesses the situation of crops in 30 key countries that represent the global major producers and exporters or otherwise are of globalor CropWatch relevance. In addition, the overview section (3.1) pays attention to other countries worldwide, to provide some spatial and thematic detail to the overall features described in section 1.1. In section 3.2, the CropWatch monitored countries are presented, and for each country maps are included illustrating NDVI-based crop condition development graphs, maximum VCI, and spatial NDVI patterns with associated NDVI profiles. Additional detail on theagroclimatic and BIOMSS indicators, in particular for some of the larger countries, is included in Annex A, tables A.2-A.11. Annex B includes 2015production estimates for Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the United States.

3.1 Overview

Section 1.1 of this bulletin stressed that the global patterns of theCropWatch agroclimatic indicators (CWAIs: RAIN, TEMP and RADPAR) anomalies identify well-delimited zones but that the zones mostly do not coincide with, or only imperfectly overlap for, different indicators. This is apparent in figures3.1 to 3.4.

Figure 3.1. Global map of rainfall (RAIN) bycountry and sub-national areas, departure from 14YA (percentage), July-October2015

Figure 3.2. Global map of temperature (TEMP) bycountry and sub-national areas, departure from 14YA (degrees), July-October2015

Figure 3.3. Global map of PAR (RADPAR) by countryand sub-national areas, departure from 14YA (percentage), July-October 2015

Figure 3.4. Global map of biomass (BIOMSS) by countryand sub-national areas, departure from 14YA (percentage), July-October 2015

It has also been noted that the global variations of RAIN are largely compatible with well-known El Niño effects. Table 3.1 below parallels table 1.1in section 1.1 and lists the twenty most extreme low and high national rainfall departures.

Table 3.1. CropWatch indicators and the anomalies in RAIN (%), TEMP (°C) andRADPAR (%) among some countries sorted by the largestrainfall anomalies

Some extremely severe departures of rainfall occurred in East Asia, SoutheastAsia and in Oceania
(NCL, -81%; NZL, -73%, WSM, -71%; PRK, -64%), in Africa (STP, -82%; Kenya,-51%), in Europe (western Mediterranean: PRT, -59%; Ukraine -49%), LatinAmerica and the Caribbean islands (GUF, -81%; ECU and JAM, -48%). The listedcountries are part of broader clusters of varying sizes that are clearlyvisible in figure 3.1.

Some of these countries combine to cover limited areas (such asPortugal, Spain and adjacent Morocco) while others, centered around the southof western Russia and Ukraine, encompass large areas stretching fromSwitzerland to Karelia (north-west Russia) to the north of the Caspian(Kazakhstan), including the Caucasus, the northern Black Sea and Romania.

Deficit areas also include (1) much of the Southern Cone (Cono Sul) ofLatin America (but fortunately avoids many important production areas andincludes mostly rangelands and mountainous areas where little is produced) and(2) north-east India (Gujarat, -75%; Rajastan, -27%) and much of peninsularIndia, south of and including the states Maharashtra (-38%) and Andhra Pradesh(-20%).

Very favourable rainfall conditions (sometimes leading to floods, as inBurkina Faso as mentioned in section 2.2 on the West Africa MPZ and section 5.2on disasters) occurred over much of north Africa and especially an immense areawest and north of the Sahara (MRT, +78%, TUN, +94%), stretchinginto central Asia (TJK, +146%; UZB, +156%) via the Middle East (IRQ,+139%). This data is represented in figure 3.1. Countries in the area are verydifferent stages of their crop calendar: in western Africa, from July toSeptember (rarely October) the cereals (millet, sorghum) and ground nuts are inlate vegetative to harvesting stages; north Africa, the MiddleEast and Central Asia approach winter cereal planting time at this time.In both cases, the abundant rainfall, beyond the beneficial and sometimesunexpected (surprisingly favourable considering the season) effect onrangelands and crops, has also created favourable conditions for winter cropsby replenishing soil moisture reserves. Also part of the large area isnorth-east India (Bihar, West Bengal, Assam), Bangladesh and Nepal whereexcessive (abundant and intense) rainfall associated with Indian Ocean cyclones(for more information on cyclone Komen refer to section 5.2) has led to a lotof suffering and crop loss.

Among the thirty major producers listed byCropWatch in the current chapter, the countries with the most favourablerainfall conditions between July and October 2015 include the United States(+22%), Brazil (+24%), Kazakhstan (+47%), Iran (+73%) and Uzbekistan(+156%), as mentioned above.  Particularly the semi-arid countrieswill benefit from abundant soil moisture for their winter crops. Table3.2 shows the CropWatch agroclimatic and agronomic indicators for July toOctober 2015, including their departures from the five-year average and the averagefor countries monitored by CropWatch.

Table 3.2. CropWatch agroclimatic and agronomic indicatorsfor July-October 2015, departure from 5YA and 14YA

Note: Departuresare expressed in relative terms (percentage) for all variables, except fortemperature, for which absolute departure in degrees Celsius is given. Zeromeans no change from the average value; Relative departures are calculated as(C-R)/R*100, with C=current value and R=reference value, which is the five-year(5YA) or fourteen-year average (14YA) for the same period (July-October).

Altogether the rainfall during the reportingperiod was unfavourable: the (unweighed) average of RAIN departures over thecountries and sub-countries monitored by CropWatch is -20%. It is important toremind readers that CWAIs are computed only for agricultural areas, even iftheir spatial representation in all the figures of this bulletin follow MRUs(Chapter 1) and political boundaries (Chapter 3). As already noted in Chapter1, there is a weak negative correlation between RADPAR and RAIN departures fromthe average, which results in the generally below average RAIN being paralleledby generally above average RADPAR (+3%). This is, somehow, visible in table 3.2where positive RADPAR departures tend to associate with negative RAIN and viceversa.

The lowest RADPAR departures (figure3.3) are those of the Southern Cone, the countries in the Gulf of Guinea,Mali, central to north-western Russia (between and including theoblasts of Arkhangelsk and Vologda in the west and Tomsk and Novosibirsk in theeast) and south and east China (Yunnan to Zhejiang).

In terms of TEMP, the average departure is just 0.1°C. As very clearly shownin figure 3.2, very large areas of the globe recorded average or above averagetemperatures, well in line with global warming projectionsscenarios. During the reporting period, areas with below averagetemperatures were mostly concentrated in north-western Europe(Benelux, France, Great Britain and especially Ireland with a-2.0°C departure), western Russia (Oblasts of Kurgan, Perm, Sverdlovsk andTyumen, the Udmurt Republic and the Komi-Permyak Okrug, with departures between-2.1°C and -2.3°C) and eastern Asia (Japan, -1.0°C and Guangxi to Anhui ineastern China, -1.1°C to -1.6°C).

Finally, being based on Lieth's Miami model,the biomass production potential (figure 3.4) is affected by both precipitationand temperature. High positive departures affect the semi-arid regions aroundthe Sahara to Central Asia (Tajikistan, +83% and Uzbekistan, +105%), asmentioned, much of North America and the major agricultural areas in southernBrazil. The most negative departures occur in Southeast Asia (Timor Leste,-94% and Indonesia, -59%), Oceania (New Zealand, -59%), KoreaDPR (-43%) and the area from Kazakhstan to Poland (Oblasts ofBelgorod, -69%; Voronezh, -63%;  Kursk, -60% and Atyrau in Kazakhstan,-44%). In Africa, the least favourable areas include mostly pastoral Namibia(-58%) and Kenya (-43%).