Buildingon the CropWatch analyses presented in chapters 1 through 4, this chapter presentsinitial CropWatch food production estimates for 2018 (section 5.1), as well as sectionson recent disaster events (section 5.2), and an update on El Niño (5.3).

5.1 CropWatch food production estimates

Methodological introduction

Table 5.1 presents the second revision revision of global maize, rice, wheat and soybeans production estimates prepared for 2018 by the CropWatch team. It is issued at a time when all 2017-2018 winter crops and 2018 summer crops in the temperate northern hemisphere have been harvested; in the southern hemisphere winter crops are growing and the planting of the summer season/monsoon season is underway or about to start. The planting of the second crop is ongoing or about to start in equatorial areas.  

The production estimate below is based on a combination of remote-sensing models (for major commodities at the national level, in the 42 “core countries”) and statistical projections based on recent trends for 140 minor producers [1]. In table 5.1 below, modelled outputs are red bolded. The percentage of the global production which is modelled (as opposed to projected using trends) now mostly exceeds 89% for all crops (from 89% for wheat to 94% for soybean).

CropWatch production estimates differ from most other global estimates by the use of geophysical data in addition to other reference information such as detailed crop distribution maps. The reader is also reminded that a specific section (chapter 4) provides additional detail about China, of which only national aggregates are mentioned in this section.  Sub-national statistics (including actual 2017 data) are used for the main commodities in the core countries. 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.

Of the two groups of countries which were already referred to above, “core countries” cover all the major producers in addition to some countries deemed important according to various criteria, alphabetically from Afghanistan to Zambia. The core producers represent at least 89% of estimated 2018 production (94% for soybeans) and 88% of average 2014-2016 exports of wheat, 92% for rice [2] and 93% for soybean and maize.

Production estimates (Table 5.1)

CropWatch estimates the global 2018 production of the major commodities at 999 million tonnes of maize [3], down 1.1% from 2017,  721 millions for rice (down 1.8%), 723 million tonnes of wheat (with a 0.9% decrease below 2017 output) and 327 million tonnes of soybeans, just 0.1% over 2017. The major or “core” producers contribute 916 million tonnes of maize (-1.1%), 658 millions for rice (-1.9%), 648 million tonnes of wheat (a 0.9% drop) and 307 million tonnes of soybeans (up 0.3% above 2017 output). The contribution of the “minor producers” (shown as “Others” in the table) to the global production is 6% (soybean) to 12% (wheat), and about 9% for rice and maize. The group of the minor producers generally outperforms the bulk of the remaining nations for rice and wheat, while the drop below 2017 output is comparable for maize. For soybeans, the trend-based production change of -2.1% for minor producers stays below the modelled value for the core producers (+0.3%). In earlier bulletins, we noted a trend of many small (and not so small: Pakistan) 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 interesting to note the 2017-2018 population growth rate of the core countries (5902 million people) reaches 1.0% (growth rate weighted by 2017 population)  while the “minor producers” grew somewhat faster (1.6%) and their population amounts to 1603 millions [4].

This means in substance that food supply of the major commodities considered here is not keeping pace with demand. This needs not rise concern, at least in the short term, since several important food categories such as roots and tubers (especially white potatoes and cassava) are not considered here and because for many crops, especially maize and soybeans, only a fraction is used for human consumption. It is also stressed that the trend-based projection of 2017-2018 global food supply variation amounts to 0.0% for maize (0.1% for the core producers) , -0.1% for rice (both global production and core producers), +1.2 % for wheat (+1.4% for core producers) and 4.7% (5.1%). For the current 2018 season, actual output thus remained below trend values, which is clearly the result of unfavourable conditions in several major producers, as stressed below and in other sections of the bulletin (Chapter 1, Section 3.1) for individual countries and commodities.  

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

Maize

For maize and the other crops below, this presentation limits itself to modelled productions because they address major countries (major in terms of their output for domestic consumption and in terms of their exports.)

China, the second largest producer, did well as production increased 1.4%, equivalent to 2649 thousand tonnes. The major global producer, the United States experienced a production drop of 2.1%,  or about 8 million tonnes.  Among the other major producers, very few did well; they include Brazil (+1.8%), Nigeria (+5.3%) and Romania (+7,5%). Canada displays a slight increase (+0.8%) while Russia and Mexico are down by less than 1% (-0.4%, -0.9%, respectively). All other significant producers, among which several grow the crop mostly for domestic consumption, underwent a drop in production, starting with Ukraine (-7.8%), South Africa (-6.9%), Argentina (-6.2%), India (-5,8%), Indonesia (-4.9%)  and France (-1.5%).

It is worth noting that some minor producers (including some exporters) did well this season, including Ethiopia and Hungary (+3.3% for both), Italy (+5.6%) and especially Kenya (+16.1%). One of the largest drops at the national level affected Egypt (-6.8%).

The production of the top exporters (table 5.2), which contribute about 50% of world production (48% for the top 3 exporters; 57% for the top 10) is down about 2%, which corresponds to about 20 million tonnes. The production of the importers is up about 10% (11.4% for the top 10) or approximately 5 million tonnes.  This compares with a total traded volume of about 140 million tonnes and should not lead to any tension on maize markets.

Rice

With few exceptions, all major Asian rice producers recorded drops in production in 2018 compared with the previous season. This includes essentially China (-1.6% or 3.2 million tonnes), India (-2.1% or 1.1 million tonnes) and Indonesia (-4.7%, slightly below 1 million tonnes). As in other countries in the region, anomalous environmental conditions are the main factor behind the drops, which also affected Pakistan (-11.7%), the Philippines (-2.4%), Myanmar (-1.4%), Vietnam (-1,3%) and Bangladesh (-0.9%). In Thailand, the second largest exporter on par with India, suffered relatively little with a drop of 0.5%. This drop is comparable with Bangladesh (-0.9%) which is not, however, a significant exporter. Among the non-Asian exporters, both the United States and Brazil did well (+1.0% and +2.2%, respectively; no data are available for Uruguay).

As was noted for maize, CropWatch estimates the production drop for rice in Egypt at 6.9%.

The top 10 rice exporters contribute about about 40% of global production (Table 5.2). Their output is down 1.7% (equivalent to about 5 million tonnes), which is comparable with the production deficit of importers (2.3%) and represents roughly 13% of traded amounts. The combined effect of increased demand and reduced offer may affect international markets.   

Wheat

As already mentioned in the previous CropWatch bulletin, 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 12.8%, followed by Russia (-10.3%) and Ukraine (-7.1%). The overall wheat production drop was contributed to by almost all major wheat producing countries including, in addition to those already mentioned Poland (-7.4%), the United Kingdom (-5.3%), France (-4.5%), Germany and Argentina (both at -4.4%), United States (-3.9%), Brazil (-3.8%) and Romania (-2.1%). In comparison, the large Asian countries did relatively well with India at -2.3%,  Kazakhstan at -1.9%, Pakistan at -1.2%  and especially China at just -0.1%.

Few countries did well; they include Italy (+1.3%), Turkey (+3.4%), Iran (+8.8%) after a run of bad years, Mexico (+9.3%) and South-Africa (+22.5%).

The output of exporters is down about 6%, which represents between 15 and 20 million tonnes of tradeable wheat. This compares with the significant increase in production of the major importers (+41.8% for the top 10) importers, a volume at least equivalent to the production deficit of exporters, which is thus unlikely to affect markets.

Soybean

Soybean is the crop for which the difference between the trend-based projection for 2018 (+4.7%) and the value simulated by CropWatch (0.1%) is the largest. Soybean is also the crop for which importers did particularly well in 2018, increasing output by about 3%, which results from the reversal of the negative production trend in China (now at +2.1%). Other countries with 2018 production increases include Canada (+0.4%), Brazil (+1.2%), United States (+2.8%) and Russia (+3.9%). The combined production deficit in 2018 compared with 2017 of India (-6,5%) and Argentina (-7.6%) amounts to 4.7 million tonnes, while the increase in the other modelled countries reaches almost exactly the same amount (4.6 million tonnes).  

Particularly when considering that no actual data are available in table 5.1 for Uruguay and Ukraine, two major soybean exporters, the data in table 5.2 show that soybean importers did generally well this year and that no particular stress should affect international soybean supplies.

Table 5.2: 2017-2018 statistics regarding the top 3, 5 and 10 exporters and importers. Rice is expressed as paddy. kT is total production in thousand tonnes, Δ% is the change in production between 2017 and 2018 and S% is the ratio (in %) between kT and total production (core countries and minor producers)

Footnotes

[1] “Minor producers” include the 140 countries from Albania and Algeria to Yemen and Zimbabwe that are not included in the table of44 countries conventionally referred to as “core producers.”Minor producer estimates are trend based using latest FAOSTAT data:2017 was first estimated based on 2012-16 data, then 2018 based on2013-17 data. National projections below 0 were set to 0 before adding the 140 national projections.

[2] FAOSTAT trade data are expressed in milled rice equivalent. Traded volumes are low compared with production: 4% for paddy to 33% for soybean.

[3] All amounts quoted in the text are rounded from the values in the table.

[4] 48 territories are not included; they are mostly small islands or very thinly populated non-agricultural areas or areas which do not report statistics to FAO. They include Greenland, Pacific islands,French overseas territories, Singapore etc. for a total population of 44 millions.