5.1 CropWatch food productionestimates

Methodological introduction

Table 5.1 presents the latest revision ofthe periodic estimate by the CropWatch team of global maize, rice, wheat, andsoybean production. For the current reporting period, virtually all 2016 cropshave been harvested in the temperate northern hemisphere, while in manytropical areas in both hemispheres rice crops are growing (to be harvested inearly 2017) or are close to harvest. In the southern hemisphere the summerseason/monsoon season is ongoing.

Importantly, the presented estimates arebased on a combination of remote-sensing models (for the major commodities atthe national level) and statistical trend-based projections (for minorproducers[1]with an output between 100 thousand and one million tons at the national scale).Between 87% (wheat) and 92% (soybean) of the production is modelled, withmodelled outputs indicated in red in the table. In addition, for the 31countries (the “major producers”, also the focus of chapter 3 and 4), thequantitative estimates in this chapter are calibrated against nationalagricultural statistics (as opposed to FAOSTAT). This means that (i) for thelargest countries sub-national statistics are used and that (ii) 2015information in included in the calibration. Calibration is also crop-specific;it is based on different crop masks, and for each crop, both yield variationand cultivated area variation are taken into account when deriving theproduction estimates. CropWatch production estimates differ from other globalestimates by the use of geophysical data in addition to statistical and otherreference information, such as detailed crop distribution maps.

Production estimates by countries

As shown in table 5.1, CropWatch puts thetotal output of crops produced in 2016 at 2,460.531 million ton of major grainsand 315.663 million tons of soybeans. The major grains are made up almostexactly by 40% of maize (994,938 thousand ton, 1.2% over last year's output),30% of rice (as paddy, 736,026 thousand tons, down -0.8% from the previousyear) and 30% of wheat (729,567 thousand ton, up 1.2 % over 2015).

Minorproducers. As often happens, the bulk of minorproducers—where food is grown more for local consumption by people and animalsthan for industrial uses and export—generally perform better than the majorproducers, among others because most of them have not reached the environmentaland economic constraints that prevent the expansion of land and the increase ofyields. For instance, maize production for these producers is up 2.8%, riceincreases 1.4%, wheat by 1.6%, and soybeans by 7.0%, illustrating the overallpopularity of soybean that is second only to the appeal for maize.

Majorcereal producers. Among the three major cerealproducers, the output of China reached 519,584 thousand tons, the United States435,267 thousand tons, and India, significantly less, 261,531 million tons.Although India remains a relatively minor producer of maize (18,649 thousandtons), it still out-produces the 4th and 5th cerealproducers in terms of total cereal output (Brazil: 89,033 thousand tons; andIndonesia: 87,620 thousand tons).

Neither China nor India performed well in2016 due to the poor environmental conditions, especially in India. While maizestagnates in China, both rice and wheat production drop 1% compared to lastyear, and for the first time in more than a decade the production of soybean inChina is up, resulting from agricultural policy changes. In India, only rice isup by 1%, soybean is on par with 2015, maize is down 1%, and wheat as much as6%, one of the largest decreases of all the countries monitored by CropWatch.In the United States, on the other hand, while wheat remains stable, the outputof all other major commodities increases significantly, with soybean up 3% andboth maize and rice growing at least 5%.

Maize.Four countries have to be singled out for theirpoor performance of maize production compared with 2015, namely South Africa(down 32% due to the devastating El Niño triggered drought), Brazil (-12%),Pakistan (-7%), and Egypt (-4%). With the exception of South-Africa (+1%), thesame countries also suffered a setback of their rice production (-7%, -3% and-4%, respectively). Among the countries for which specific CropWatch estimatesare available[2]the best performance of maize occurred in Kazakhstan (+5%), Romania (+7%),Uzbekistan (+7%), Iran (+8%), Ukraine (+9%), and Ethiopia (+10%), with thoseincreases usually directly ascribable to more favorable than average weatheror—in the case of Ethiopia—more favorable than the very bad 2015 season.

Rice.The early 2016 rice crops did poorly in a number ofAsian countries because of the prevailing El Niño drought in Southeast Asiathat was reported on in detail in the February and May 2016 CropWatchbulletins. The list includes Cambodia (rice production down 10%), Myanmar(-8%), Bangladesh and Vietnam (both -6%), Pakistan (-3%), and the alreadymentioned China (-1%) where the size of the country and the diversity ofagro-ecological conditions provides some protection against extreme weather.Albeit for different reasons, European rice producers (Ukraine, Romania) alsounderperformed (both at -4%). For the same reasons as those mentioned formaize, Ethiopian rice grew 5%, and so did rice production of the United States(+6%), Iran (+9%), and Uzbekistan (+10%), which is part of a group of countriesin Central Asia that benefited from unusually favorable rain for the secondconsecutive year.

Wheat.To some extent the global situation for wheat isalways different from that affecting other crops because of the very largenumber of countries where the crop is produced. The most spectacular decreasein wheat production occurred in Turkey (-17%), followed by some major producersand exporters such as India (-6%), Argentina (-4%), and France and the UnitedKingdom (both at -3%). Large increases are those of Australia (+25%),Kazakhstan (+14%), and Iran (+15%), a country that did well for most cropsafter a long run of mediocre conditions.

Soybean.In a sharp contrast with the large number ofproducers and major exporters of wheat, the situation for soybean is prettymuch the opposite in that the bulk of production occurs in just a handful ofcountries. Egypt, Iran, Canada, and one of the largest producers (Argentina)all underwent a drop of 1%, while Brazil increased soybean production by 2% andboth Russia and the United States by 3%.

Table 5.1. Summary of 2016 productionestimates by major country and variation (%, compared with 2015) of maize,rice, wheat, and soybean

Notes: “All countries” combines major andminor producers. Major producers are all the countries listed in the table;minor producers are the remaining countries. Boldfaced numbers in red aremodel-based estimates by CropWatch calibrated against data up to 2015; normalfaced numbers are simple statistical projections based on FAOSTAT data up to2014.

Production by importers and exporters

The variation in the global demand formaize, rice, wheat, and soybean can be assessed through variations in thedomestic production of major importers[3](table 5.2). The major importers have generally increased their domesticoutput, with the notable exceptions of rice (for the top three rice importersresulting from a 1% production drop in China) and wheat (for the top 10importers with Turkey estimated to have lost 17% of production compared with2015). Exporters did generally well with a marked increase in wheatavailability among the major exporters (+8.0%), resulting from the excellentperformance of Canada and Australia. The reduced rice availability for the top10 exporters (-0.6%) results from the poor performance of several countries,including Pakistan (-3%), Vietnam (-6%), Brazil (-7%), Cambodia (-10%), andItaly (-1%). On the contrary, the offer of rice has increased in Australia(+14%) and the United States (+6%).

Table 5.2. Change (Δ%) in 2016 productioncompared with 2015 among the major exporting and importing countries

Notes: Share % is the fraction of exports and imports that is contributedby the top 3 and the top 10 countries. The identification of major exportersand importers was obtained from the following sources: Wheat, maize and riceexport data source (2015 data), http://www.worldstopexports.com/wheat-exports-country/; Soybean exports combine meal and seeds, http://legroupindustries.com/top-10-exporters-of-soybeans-and-soybean-meals-by-country/(2013 data); maize imports (2016 estimates), http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?commodity=corn&graph=imports;rice importer (2015), http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-rice-importers-in-the-world.html; wheat imports http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?commodity=wheat&graph=imports; and soybean imports, (2011) www.earth-policy.org/datacenter/xls/book_fpep_ch9_3.xlsx.

The most noteworthy variations among maizeexporters include mainly the large drop of maize production in Brazil (-12%,see table 5.1). On the positive side, the United States (+5%), Ukraine (+9%),and Russia (+3%) deserve mention, as well as the fact that Ukraine exportsabout three times more maize than Russia. Among wheat exporters, China’sneighbor and wheat supplier Kazakhstan (+14%) did as well as the alreadymentioned Canada (+9%) and Australia (+25%), while France (-3%) and Argentina(-4%), respectively 4th and 9th exporters, did poorly.Among soybean exporters, only Argentina (3rd exporter) needs to bementioned with a 1% production drop due to water logging resulting from excessprecipitation.

Importer countries that are likely to buymore include Egypt (with a 4% production drop in maize) as well as Japan wherethe long-term drop in soybean production continued in 2015 (-2%). Reducedimports due to favorable domestic production include Iran for maize (+8%) andrice (+9%), rice in the Philippines (+3%) and in Iraq (+9%), and wheat inBrazil (+8%) and especially Egypt—globally the major wheat importer in the world(+3%).

[1] The major producers represent at least 80% or production and 80% ofexports. Minor producers include the 151 countries from Afghanistan and Angolato Zambia and Zimbabwe.

[2] As opposed to FAOSTAT based projections.

[3] This discussion does not include countries where the 2016production was estimated based on trend, which are the “minor producers.