WHEAT CROPS OF THE WORLD

Southland Times, Issue 23544, 25 June 1938, Page 7

WHEAT CROPS OF THE WORLD

CHANGED CONDITIONS IN RECENT YEARS BIG HARVESTS IN UNITED STATES PROBABLE (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, June 21. The Imperial Economic Committee’s annual review of grain _ crops shows how rapidly conditions in the world market for wheat have changed in recent years. The world’s visible stocks of wheat wete more than 32,600,000 tons' at the end of the 1933-34 season. From then they had been so much diminished by August 1937 that the total, 14,250,000 tons, was the smallest figure for more than 10 years. Prices rose sharply during 1936-37 with the fall in supplies, and farmers throughout the world sowed an appreciably larger area with s wheat for the 1937-38 crop than in the previous season. Though there was no proportional increase in the world production of wheat, excluding Russia and China, nevertheless the harvest was larger than in any of the three preceding seasons. Consequently stocks tins August are expected to show an increase of about 2,000,000 tons over last year, much of this increase occurring in America, where the wheat crop in 1937 was bigger than in any other larvest since 1931. Stocks in Canada and Argentina are unlikely to differ much from the totals recorded in August 1937, for in both countries the last crop was small as the result of drought and frost damage respectively. The review describes recent changes in the wheat trade of the principal countries. America, having bountiful supplies in the current 1937-38 season, has resumed its old position as a wheat exporter, whereas last year it was importing heavily. Russia had increased its exports, and Australia also has larger supplies available. On the other hand, both Canada and Argentina have only small exportable, surpluses. Tile review draws attention to the fact that in few parts of the world has there been any indication that the area devoted to wheat for the 1938-39 crop will be substantially reduced compared with the last sowings. Since last autumn the price of wheat has shown a downwards trend, and recently the decline has been rapid, very largely as a result of the prospect of a bumper harvest in America this year. It is too early yet to judge what the final output will be, but it seems that the world crop, providing the harvests are normal, may be substantially larger than the demand, even if the European demand is assisted by government purchases to build up reserves of wheat against possible emergencies.