5.1 CropWatch food production estimates

Table 5.1 presents the first revision of global maize, rice, wheat and soybeans production estimates prepared for 2018 by the CropWatch team. It is issued at a time when almost all winter crops in the northern hemisphere have been harvested and summer crops are in their late stages; in the southern hemisphere winter crops are growing and the planting of the summer season/monsoon season will start in a month or so.

The estimate is based on a combination of remote-sensing models (for major commodities at the national level) and statistical projections based on recent trends for minor producers1 and for those countries which will harvest their crops later during 2018, for which no directly observed crop condition information is currently available. In the table below, modelled outputs are red bolded. The percentage of the production which is modelled (as opposed to projected using trends) now mostly exceeds 90% for all crops.

It is also important to remember that, for China and the 43 countries described in chapters 3 and 4 and listed by name (conventionally referred to as the “major producers”), the quantitative estimates in the present chapter are calibrated against national agricultural statistics (as opposed to FAOSTAT for the trends). This means that (1) sub-national statistics are used at least for the largest countries and (2) 2017 information in included in the calibration. It is also stressed that the calibration is crop-specific, i.e. based on different crop masks for each crop and that, for each crop, both yield variation and cultivated area variation are taken into account when deriving the production estimates. The major producers represent at least 80% or production and 80% of exports. “Others” or “Minor producers” [Footnote 1]  and the countries shown in black in the production table were extrapolated to 2018 based on the linear trend from 2013 to 2017,with FAOSTAT data up to 2016 (the last year available)3.

CropWatch production estimates differ from other global estimates by the use of geophysical data in addition to statistical and other reference information such as detailed crop distribution maps. The reader is also reminded that a specific section (chapter 4) provides addition detail about China, of which only national data are mentioned in this section. 

Production estimates

CropWatch estimates the global 2017 production of the major commodities at 1007 million tonnes of maize, down 0.3% from 2017,  746 millions for rice (up 1.6%), 715 million tonnes of wheat (with a 2.6% decrease below 2017 output) and 320 million tonnes of soybeans, down 1.4%.The major producers contribute 924 million tonnes of maize (-0.2%), 684 millions for rice (+1.8%), 640 million tonnes of wheat (a 2.9% drop) and 300 million tonnes of soybeans (-1,4% below 2017 output). The contribution of the “minor producers” (shown as “others” in the table) to the global production is 6% (soybean) to 10% (wheat), and about 8% for rice and maize. The group of the major producers generally outperforms the bulk of the remaining nations, except for wheat where production drop is less than for the major producers. In August 2017 we noted a trend of many small (and not so small: PAK) producers of soybean to move away from the crop on all continents. The tendency is present in 2018 as well. For purpose of comparison, it is noted that the median nation-wide population-based increase in food demand is currently 1.3% and just under 3% for the upper decile. It is also stressed that the trend-based projection of 2018 for major producers amount to +0.1% for maize, -0.1 for rice, 1.4% for wheat and 5.1% for soybean. For all crops except rice, the actual variation remains below the projections. Adverse weather (or favourable in the case of rice)  is directly responsible for the situation, as shown in other sections of this report. Detailed information for China is provided below.

Maize

For maize and the other crops below, this presentation limits itself to modelled productions. Large increases in maize production are listed for Hungary (+9.0%) and Romania (+15.8%), while neighbouring Ukraine, where rainfall was less favourable, is foreseen to undergo a significant drop of 8.8%. Similarly, production estimates for Russia are at -18.3%.  Low values are estimated as well for Pakistan (-10.1%), Argentina (-6.2%) and Canada (-4.2%). Countries with significant increases also include Kenya (+16.1%)  and Thailand (+9.2%). Among the major exporters, the USA underwent a minor increase (+0.3%) while Brazil is put at +1.7%. Due to the poor expectations regarding Argentinian maize, the output of the three major exporters (according to table 5.2) is up just 0.1% while the expected output from other exporters (including Ukraine, Russia, but also India) results in a 0.3% drop of production of the top ten exporters. Major importers (Japan, Mexico, Korean Republic) did relatively well (+1.9% for the top 3) thanks to Mexico (+1.9%). It is stressed, however, that the volume of maize exported by the top 3 providers (about 85 million tonnes) is more than double the imports by the major importers and no dramatic changes should result from the relatively poor global maize output.

Table 5.1 productions in thousands tonnes. Δ% stands for the percent difference between 2018 and 2017 production values

Rice

Because rice, as an irrigated crop, is relatively less weather dependent than maize, wheat or soybean, which are mostly rain-fed, the variations among producers are also less marked than for the other cereals. The largest production drop occured in Argentina (-5.6%), which is a relatively minor rice producer and exporter. In terms of volume of production deficit, it is worth mentioning China (-2.1%, equivalent to 4.2 million tonnes) and Indonesia (-2.5%, equivalent to 1.7 million tonnes) while India increased production by 10.1 million tonnes (+6.2% ), the forth largest increase in the table after Bangladesh (+6.2% as well) and Thailand (+7.7%). In terms of output of major exporters (Table 5.2), the offer by the top 3 exporters increased significantly essentially because of the good performance of India and Thailand - which was just mentioned - while Vietnam increased output only marginally (+0.2%). Among the top importers, production fell 5.7% but, although the list includes China, imported volumes are small (less than 3 million tonnes).

Table 5.2: 2017-2018 percent variation in production of the top 3, 5 and 10 exporters and importers.

Wheat

Australian and Argentinian wheat outputs are among the most variable in the group of major producers. This time, Australia’s estimated production for 2018 is down by a very significant 19.7%, followed by Russia (-10.3%) and Ukraine (-7.1%), two countries already mentioned above for the poor projections of summer crop outputs (i.e. maize).   For the United states, CropWatch estimates winter wheat output to be down 3.9% below 2017, while production deficits of France and Germany, two major European producers reach 4.5% and 4.4%, respectively. A positive note is the good performance of Iran (+8.8%) after a series of unfavorable seasons. Although they trade only litlle, the major producers of wheat are China and India. Both underwent a drop in production that was only minor in China (-0.1%, equivalent to just 80 thousand tonnes) but more significant in India (-2.3%, equivalent to 2.1 million tonnes).  This is more than compensated by rice in India and by maize in China.

The production drop among major exporters (Table 5.2; −5.7 % for the top 3 exporters and −7.1 for the top 5) is more significant than the global production drop in wheat (-2.6%).  The top 10 importers did rather well as a group  (+1.2%), among others due to the presence of Iran and Mexico.

Soybean

Soybean is the crop for which the difference between the trend-based projection for 2018 and the value simulated by CropWatch (table 5.1) is the largest, reaching 6.5% (forecast -1.4%; projected 5.1%), the second largest discrepancy occurring for wheat (4.0%, resulting from a  forecast -2.6% and a projection of 1.4%). This underlines the fact that the current behavior of Soybean somehow departs from optimistic expectations.  With the exception of China, all the major Soybean producers undergo a drop compared to 2017, most notably Canada and India (both at 5.3%) but especially Argentina (7.6) due to unfavourable weather. China reversed the decade long negative production trend by adopting a new agricultural policy.

Soybean is also the crop for which importers did particularly well in 2018, increasing output by  6.1% among the top ten importers. This results, again, from the production increase in China.

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