Canberra | Reuters — The Grain Industry Association of Western Australia (GIWA) said on Friday that the state’s recent harvest yielded approximately 1.6 million metric tons more wheat than its December forecast.
Western Australia, which competes with New South Wales as the country’s biggest cropping region, produced 12.45 million tons of wheat, GIWA said in its final report of the 2024/25 cropping season.
That result far exceeds the association’s earlier forecasts of 10.825 million in December, when the crop was still being brought in, and 9.3 million tons in September, when grain was still maturing in the fields.
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Australia is a major grain exporter.
GIWA attributed the high production to a warm winter, effective farm management, and a decline in sheep numbers, which have freed up more land for cropping.
“Grain yield estimates prior to harvest were up to 20 per cent lower than actual deliveries,” its report said. “The 2024 grain growing season has ended up with the third-largest tonnage on record.”
The association also raised its estimate for Western Australia’s barley output by around 800,000 tons to 5.89 million tons and left its canola figure roughly unchanged at 2.87 million tons.
Crop yields in other Australian states also exceeded expectations, leading analysts to raise their national production estimates to between 32 million tons and 35.5 million tons.
Higher-than-expected Australian supply along with weak global demand are helping to hold benchmark Chicago wheat futures Wv1 below $6 a bushel after prices fell to a four-year low of $5.14 last year.
— Reporting by Peter Hobson
