Bulletin

wall bulletin
Exective Summary

Authors: 超级管理员 | Edit: yannn

Executive summary

The current CropWatch bulletin is based mainly on remotelysensed data. It focuses on crops that were either growing or harvested betweenJanuary and April 2017. The bulletin covers prevailing weather conditions,including extreme factors, as well as crop condition and size of cultivatedareas, paying special attention to the major worldwide producers of maize,rice, wheat, and soybean. The bulletin also describes the current cropcondition and prospects in China and presents a first global productionestimate for crops to be harvested throughout 2017. The estimated production isbased on partial data and will be updated in the next two CropWatch 2017bulletins.

Global agroclimatic conditions

Compared with previous CropWatch bulletins, the currentreporting period does not identify very large (continent-wide) anomalies, andtheir intensity is mostly not very severe. There were, nevertheless, some areaswith abnormal conditions that affect several contiguous MRUs (Mapping andReporting Units, the largest CropWatch monitoring units), starting with belowaverage rainfall in the winter crop areas in Eastern Asia and in theMediterranean basin (where the biomass production potential fell 20 to 30%). InEast Africa, the El Niño induced drought persisted in some areas that had notrecovered yet from the 2016 drought, a situation exacerbated by a refugeecrisis stemming from a combination of environmental stress and conflict.

Excess precipitation is reported from (i) northern China andMongolia and adjacent areas, (ii) continental Southeast Asia to parts ofAustralia across maritime Southeast Asia, (iii) much of North America and,especially, from the two areas of (iv) South Africa, mostly in Zimbabwe andMozambique, and (v) north-western South America (Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru)where excess precipitation started in December 2016, lasting for months andseverely affecting millions of people with damage amounting to billions of USdollars.

Much of North America also recorded above averagetemperature and below average sunshine in major agricultural areas. At the timeof reporting, the CropWatch indicator for cropped arable land fraction (CALF)reaches 47% for this region, which is 5 percentage points above the average ofthe previous five years, while the maximum Vegetation Condition Index (VCIx) isalso satisfactory (0.85). VCIx is lowest in central Europe and western Russia(0.65) where, in addition, CALF dropped to 72%, 8 percentage points below thefive-year average. The largest VCIx drop occurred in West Africa (-13%).

Production outlook

The final outcome of the 2017 season will depend onagroclimatic conditions up to the end of the year. It is, therefore, crucial tonote that the occurrence of another El Niño during 2017, the likelihood ofwhich is currently put at 50%, may dramatically alter the current outlook inSouth America, South and Southeast Asia, and the Horn of Africa, which are someof the areas directly under the influence of El Niño.

The current global production estimates for 2017 of themajor commodities amount to 730 million tons of wheat (representing a 1% dropbelow 2016 production), 761 million tons of rice (up 3%), 305 million tons ofsoybeans (down 3%), and 1056 million tons of maize (up 5% over 2016). The majorproducers—defined as the countries that together produce 80% of the variouscommodities—contribute 622 million tons of wheat (-1%), 685 million tons ofrice (+3%), 282 million tons of soybeans (-4%), and 936 million tons of maize(+6% compared to 2016). The share of the “minor producers” to the globalproduction is 8% (soybean) to 15% (maize), and about 10% for rice and wheat.

For wheat production, in agreement with the above-mentionedagroclimatic and agronomic indicators for Russia, wheat production is currentlyput 18% below last year’s output. Relative production drops are also listed forIran, Kazakhstan, Romania, and Turkey (in a range from -26% to -11%), as wellas the United States with a smaller drop of 4%.

For rice production, most important Asian rice producers arealso expected to do well, with the Philippines being the only major producer inthe region that undergoes a decrease (-5%). The country is one of the majorrice importers.

For soybean production, Argentina remains at the level of2016 and Brazil is up 5%. For the global output, which is trend-based for allother countries, production drops among most minor producers, continuing atrend that has lasted for several years now. If it should continue in thefuture, it would exacerbate the current situation of “three producers and onebuyer.”

Finally, for maize, CropWatch puts China at 212 million tons(+6%) and the United States at 383 million tons (+4%). In the southernhemisphere, both Brazil and Argentina did well with outputs of 79 million tons(+13%) and 30 million tons (+16%), respectively.

China

Winter wheat yield is up 2.2% over 2016, with a productionforecast at 116 million tons, an increase of just under 2 million tons,equivalent to +1.7%, even if the cropped area dropped 2%, mostly in parts ofAnhui and Jiangsu. The largest production increases are observed in Hebei(+4.0%), Shanxi (+5.7%), Shandong (+3.3%), and Henan (+3.9%). The area underrapeseed dropped about 1%, resulting in an overall increase of winter cropsproduction by 1.3%.

In China, positive rainfall anomalies were largest in InnerMongolia (+60%, accompanied by above-average temperature), while southwestChina (-17%), Lower Yangtze (-21%), and southern China (-7%) all recorded adeficit and a reduction in sunshine. CALF was low in the Loess region (-7%) andcrop/vegetation condition as assesses by VCIx was just fair or even rather lowin Inner Mongolia (0.41). In terms of production, in addition to the alreadymentioned 6% increase in maize production to reach 212 million tons, rice andwheat (winter and summer crops) are up 2% (to 205 and 121 million tons,respectively), and soybean is down 3%. Since all estimates are trend-based, itis possible that soybean output will increase again, as it did in 2016 for thefirst time in a decade.

The present bulletin also includes a note on pests anddiseases, the impact of which was relatively severe in mid-May 2017 in the mainwheat producing regions.