Global grain output seen at record on US outlook, UN says

Rome- based FAO says good crops may translate to somewhat downward pressure on prices

Global production of coarse grains might climb to a record in 2013 and wheat output could be higher than previously expected, as prospects improved for crops in the US, Russia and Europe following dry weather last year, the United Nations' Food & Agriculture Organization said.

The world's farmers might harvest 1.27 billion tonnes of coarse grain including corn, barley and oats, up 9.3 per cent from the 1.16 billion tonnes produced a year earlier, the Rome- based FAO said today in a report on its website, providing its first estimates for total supplies from the next harvest.

Corn output might be 960 million tonnes, up 10 per cent. The coarse grain harvest will be 28 per cent larger in the US, the top grower that last year had its worst drought since the 1930s.

"The big increases will be in places where last year there were big problems," Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the FAO in Rome, said by telephone yesterday. "We're expecting good crops, but we should still watch the weather. In terms of price prospects, good crops could translate to somewhat downward pressure on prices."

Corn prices, which touched a record in August, are down 9.6 per cent in 2013 on the Chicago Board of Trade on prospects for a rebound in supplies. US planting is progressing at the slowest pace since 1984, as last year's drought was followed by too much rain in the Midwest this year, government data show.