FAO forecasts higher wheat yield in Pakistan

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has forecast higher yield of wheat in Pakistan as well as several other countries in the region and outside that could help compensate below-average harvests in western Europe.

The Rome-based UN agency on global food security, has also indicated that higher prices of the commodity might stimulate more planting in the United States, besides higher growth in Canada, Russia, and India.

In recent weeks, Europe’s worries have increased because of low rainfall in France – the continent’s agricultural powerhouse, the biggest grain producer in the 27-country bloc and the world’s fourth or fifth biggest wheat exporter.

In normal years, wheat flowers and bulks up in May thanks to regular spring rainfall, but this year hot and dry conditions risk stunting its progress. The French agricultural ministry warned that unseasonably hot and dry stretch “will have an impact on cereal production”.

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According to FAO, world food prices hit an all-time high in March following the Ukraine conflict, which accounted for 20% of global wheat and maize exports over the past three years. Production could fall by as much as 50% this year, according to government and industry forecasts.

Current wheat prices in Europe are at a record 400 euros a tonne ($420), up from an already high level of around 260 euros a tonne at the start of the year before the Ukraine crisis. Some of the recent price rises are down to short-term shortages caused by the sudden end to Ukrainian supplies

The high prices are expected to stimulate more planting in the United States and the FAO has forecast that higher yields in Canada and Russia, as well as Pakistan and India could help compensate below-average harvests in western Europe.

However, a prolonged drought in France could make the situation much worse. “It would deepen hunger, poverty and debt for low-income families in Africa, Asia and Latin America, making an already desperate situation much worse,” Teresa Anderson from ActionAid, a British charity, told AFP.