ABARES Revises Total Winter 23/24 Crop Up on Better Conditions in the South

The September 23 ABARES report has forecasted the Australian Winter 23/24 crop at 45.2mmt, up 0.3mmt against their estimate in June, based on better than expected conditions in South Eastern Australia and large parts of Western Australia.

Expected tonnages of barley and canola have improved by nearly 1mmt but wheat has come back to 25.4mmt, a drop of 0.8mmt from ABARES’ June estimate due to large declines in wheat production in Western Australia and New South Wales being partly offset by improvements in Victoria and South Australia.

The September 23 Winter crop area planted to each crop has been largely left unchanged versus the estimate in June and has the area planted to barley up 3% year-on-year.

The barley S&D sees an exportable surplus available from Australia of ~4.6mmt with only the Queensland domestic market being under duress. As is becoming the norm, this Northern market will be satisfied using barley from New South Wales via road and Western Australia and South Australia via ship.