The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) released a new Cereal Supply and Demand Brief on Friday. It includes revised estimates for 2024 and fresh insights on cropping conditions and prospects for 2025.
FAO’s latest forecast for 2025 wheat production is pegged at 795 million tonnes, on par with the previous year. Prospects point to a record output in Asia, buoyed by India and Pakistan, improved conditions in southern Europe and North Africa, and stable production in Canada and the Russian Federation. However, rainfall deficits in northern Europe and the Near East and drought concerns in the United States of America are weighing on the overall prospects.
Harvesting of the 2025 coarse grain crops is beginning in the southern hemisphere, with maize output expected to increase in Brazil and South Africa. In the northern hemisphere, early expectations point to a 5 percent expansion in coarse-grain plantings in the United States of America.
Meanwhile, FAO has slightly revised downward its estimate for global cereal production in 2024 to 4,848 million tonnes, even as global rice output in 2024/25 will likely expand by 1.5% to reach a record high of 543.6 million tonnes.
FAO’s new forecast for world cereal utilization in 2024/25 stands at 2,870 million tonnes, a 1.0% increase over the 2023/24 level. This increase is driven by expectations of higher feed use of maize in China and the Russian Federation and increased rice consumption in various African countries.
World cereal stocks are now predicted to decline by 1.9% to 868.2 million tonnes by the close of the 2025 season, driving down FAO’s forecast for the world cereal stocks-to-use ratio in 2024/25 to 29.9% – still considered in a comfortable buffer zone.
FAO has slightly reduced its forecast for world cereal trade in 2024/25 to 478.6 million tonnes, which would mark a 6.8% contraction from 2023/24 and the lowest level since 2019/20. Global trade in coarse grains is forecast to contract even faster, due mainly to lower demand from China and smaller exportable maize supplies in Brazil. International trade in rice is now increasing by 1.2% to a new record high of 60.4 million tonnes.
–WAM
