World Grain - November 2018 - 94

FEATURE

2019

DROUGHT IN
TO SHIFT TO LOWER LATITUDES
A second consecutive year of drought in key grain production areas could send prices upward
by Drew Lerner

rought was a little more widespread in 2018 than
expected with much of it affecting the higher
latitudes. Changing weather in 2019 should shift
much of the drier-than-usual bias to the lower latitudes
with a few exceptions. A second year in a row of sigQL¿FDQWGURXJKWLQSRUWLRQVRIWKHZRUOGPLJKWEHMXVW
enough to stimulate a little more interest in commodity
futures market trade.
Drought in 2018 began with Argentina. The nation's summer crops were crippled by one of the worst
droughts in recent history. The dry pattern came with
very warm to hot temperatures at times, especially late
last spring. Drought also affected eastern Australia
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sorghum, cotton and other unirrigated crop yields. The
dryness in Australia extended into the winter season,
harming winter wheat, barley and canola yields from
Queensland into New South Wales.
Dryness also occurred for the second year in a
row across southern Russia, Kazakhstan and eastern
Ukraine. The dry bias in these areas reached a peak
during the summer season and it hurt the production
of many crops, but mostly unirrigated summer coarse
grain and oilseed yields. Dryness in the Commonwealth
of Independent States was eased for a little while in
mid- to late-summer and then it worsened again at
about the time that winter grain seeding was under way.
Dryness in these areas only recently has been eased,
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Another potent drought affected the northern
European Union during the late spring and summer.
Dryness was the most serious since 2003 and even
though temperatures were not as hot as those 15 years
ago, the duration and intensity of drought was longer
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France, Germany and portions of both Poland and the
United Kingdom. France is at the heart of the dry bias,
but many areas across the North and Baltic Sea regions
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Even though the Balkan countries had good rainfall
during the heart of the growing season this year, the
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the need for precipitation.
Drought also impacted North America this past summer. The Canadian Prairies suffered through their second year of drought that hurt yields in canola, wheat,
lentils and other pulse crops. Some coarse grain and
oilseed crops were also negatively affected. The
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into production. Dryness remains in southern Canada's
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Some dryness also continued in a part of the northwestern U.S. during the summer of 2018, and a new
region of dryness developed temporarily in parts of
the southwestern Corn Belt. The greatest bout of U.S.
dryness and excessive heat was in the southern Plains
and northeastern Mexico, where rainfall during the late
spring and most of summer was well below average.
The dryness in Texas and northeastern Mexico hurt a
number of crops, with unirrigated cotton, sorghum and
corn high on the list of affected crops. Some citrus,
sugarcane, fruits and vegetables also were affected,
along with some milk production.
Had it not been for the huge crops in the United
States and Brazil during 2017 and 2018 and favorable
production in both China and India, the world might
have reacted differently to drought that plagued so
many areas. The trade war between the United States
and many countries likely contributed to the lack of
November 2018 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com

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World Grain - November 2018

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